A PAIR OF GEORGE III ORMOLU AND BLUE JOHN EWERS BY MATTHEW BOULTON, CIRCA 1772 Of typical form, each with an ovoid body mounted with Bacchic masks, the fluted waisted neck with fruiting laurel edge and surmounted by an acanthus-wrapped spout, the husk-wrapped scrolled handle decorated with a conforming mask, above a waisted fluted socle with conforming edge and square base, replacements and variations in colour to blue john 19¼ in. (48.5 cm.) and 18¾ in. (47.5 cm.) high, respectively (2)
London, Hotspur, Ltd., 'Ormolu: The Work of Matthew Boulton', June 1974, pl. 23.
Literature
N. Goodison, Matthew Boulton: Ormolu, London, 2002, p.245, pl.199; E. Lennox-Boyd, ed., Masterpieces of English Furniture: The Gerstenfeld Collection, London, 1998, p.254, no.123, p.27, pl. 16, and pp.180-1, pls 128 and 129. W. Reider, 'Living with Antiques', The Magazine Antiques, June 1987, p. 1321, pl. VIII. N. Goodison, Ormolu: The Work of Matthew Boulton, London, 1974, p. 131. B.S.Kern, 'Two Matthew Boulton Ewers', The Antique Collector, April 1974, p.67. Redburn (Antiques), London, Catalogue, 1973, p.4. A. Maria Massinelli, The Gilbert Collection: Hardstones, London, 2000, pp. 196-197, no. 84, wrongly identified as the present ewers.
Provenance
Supplied by Matthew Boulton in 1772 to William Molyneux, 1st Earl of Sefton (d. 1795), Croxteth Hall, Liverpool for £14.14s.0d Thence by descent and sold by the Executors of the 7th Earl of Sefton (d. 1795), Croxteth Hall, Liverpool, Christie's house sale, 17-21 September 1973, lot 115 (£4,410 to Redburn (Antiques), London, and Hotspur, Ltd., London). With Redburn (Antiques) Ltd., London, 1973 The Gerald Hochschild Collection, sold Sotheby's, London, 1 December 1978, lot 143.
Notes
THE PROPERTY OF MR. S. JON GERSTENFELD (LOTS 122 & 123)
The following two lots were executed by Matthew Boulton (d.1802), whose manufactory in Soho, Birmingham, was established in partnership with John Fothergill (d. 1782) in 1762. Boulton and Fothergill were patronized by George III and Queen Charlotte, while Christie's & Ansell's Pall Mall Rooms provided them with access to London's most fashionable clientele, with auctions of their much sought-after objets de luxe being held in 1770, 1771 and 1778. Their production consisted of a 'variety of most beautiful and rich articles, comprehending vases of exquisite shapes, clock-cases, candle branches, essence pots and many other ornaments...' and Empress Catherine of Russia is recorded to have considered their vases in 1772 to be 'superior in every respect to the French'. VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 17.5% on the buyer's premium. Please note Payments and Collections will be unavailable on Monday 12th July 2010 due to a major update to the Client Accounting IT system. For further details please call +44 (0) 20 7839 9060 or e-mail info@christies.com ADAM'S 'VASE-COLUMBARIUM STYLE' Ewers such as the present pair, candle-vases, perfume-burners and other objets d'art were executed using blue john from Castleton, Derbyshire and embellished with French-fashioned 'ormolu' to adorn chimney-piece and table garnitures for rooms decorated in the George III antique manner. With their festive satyr-headed tapering bodies, these ewers reflect the 'vase columbarium' style of interior decoration promoted by The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam, London, 1773, under the influence of the Italian antiquarian, author and architect G.B. Piranesi (d.1778). George III's Rome-trained court architect, Robert Adam followed in the wake of the artist architect James 'Athenian' Stuart (d. 1788) when he introduced ewer-vases as ornamental furniture evoking 'sacrifices at love's altar in antiquity' in his 1760 design for Lady Scarsdale's ewer-decked bookcase ('The Kedleston Bookcase', sold by the late Viscount Scarsdale and The Curzon Family, Christie's, London, 9 June 2005, lot 292, £1,464,000 sold after sale).
FROM GRECIAN EWERS TO BOULTON'S FRENCH-FASHIONED AIGUIERES Enthusiasm for decorative ewers was also popularised by Josiah Wedgwood's late 1760s establishment of his Etruria Works, where he manufactured Grecian ewers following Baron d'Hancarville's publication of Sir William Hamilton's collection of vases in A Catalogue of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1766-7. However, it was not until 1772 that the Birmingham industrialist Matthew Boulton decided to follow suit in the manufacture of 'blue john' ewers. It was during his successful London sales held at James Christie's Great Rooms that year that he received a request from Sir Harbord Harbord, later Baron Suffield for 'I pair of ures such as are proper for the gods to drink nectar'. Such a ewer garniture accompanied his purchase of one of Boulton's French-fashioned 'Venus' clocks (N. Goodison, Matthew Boulton: Ormolu, Op.cit, p. 415). The latter figured the goddess of love attending the urn-capped 'altar' commemorating her love Adonis, and derived from Sayer's Compleat Drawing Book, which featured a French engraving illustrating a scene from the ancient poets' History of Venus and Adonis. While the clock provided an appropriate Vanitas adornment for Lady Harbord's Dressing Apartment, the pattern for the accompanying ewers appears to have derived from an engraving of a Renaissance bronze ewer such as that displayed in Venice's Museo (now Palazzo) Grimani (W. Rieder & S. Walker (eds.), Vasemania: Neoclassical Form and Ornament in Europe, New Haven and London, 2005, p.89). Boulton's design for a ewer is in his Pattern Book, I, p. 83 and illustrated here. The design is virtually identical to the present pair of ewers except for the foliage at the top of the socle and a guilloche band running across the centre of the vase, neither of which elements are found on the other recorded examples.
RECORDED EXAMPLES OF EWERS BY BOULTON Seven recorded examples of this model exist: 1 & 2: the present lot. 3 & 4: The pair of ewers formerly in the collection of the late Sir Arthur Gilbert until sold for the benefit of the Gilbert Collection at Somerset House, Christie's, London, 8 June 2006, lot 70 (£243,200) now in a private collection. 5 & 6: Ewers in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Soho House. 7: A single ewer in an English historic private collection [illustrated in N. Goodison, 'Matthew Boulton's Ornamental Ormolu', Discovering Antiques, no. 48, September 1971, p. 1136, fig. 6].
