A pair of vases

With their high shoulders, tapering bodies, relatively small circular feet and separately carved necks, the present vases can be compared to a group of similar hardstone pieces attributed to Milanese workshops in the mid-16^th century (see Alcouffe, op. cit., nos. 67, 68 and 71, pp. 193-195 and 197). However, the quadrilobe neck, which may have served to support flowers, differs from these early vases but can be seen on Milanese examples from the late 16^th and early 17^th centuries (ibid, no. 132, pp. 288 and 297-298).
As is apparent from the exhibition Les Gemmes de la Couronne, held in Paris in 2001, in the 17^th century there was a flourishing trade in hardstone objects that were created abroad but subsequently embellished with costly mounts in Paris. This would seem to be the case with the present vases which display enamelled gold mounts that almost certainly originated in Paris in the years around 1670-80. In the entry written by Somers Cocks and Truman on the vases offered here, the mounts are compared to the mounts on several cameos in the Bibliothèque Nationale (loc. cit.). Among these, a cameo of Minerva has been singled out as providing clear evidence for the dating of the enamel mounts because it appears in an inventory of 1664 where it is described as having plain gold mounts whereas in a subsequent inventory of 1691, it has the enamelled gold mounts seen today. It therefore seems likely that the present hardstone vases predated their mounts, which were added to further enhance the precious hardstone.