Pair of Vases (jardinières)

To a simple hardstone shape, a designer added small gilt bronze mounts around the shoulders and the bases; similar mounts appear on furniture of the 1770s and 1780s, when the Neoclassical style was fashionable in Paris. The vases would have been used for small plants or cut flowers.

Hardstone vases mounted with gilt bronze were extremely popular during the later decades of the 1700s in France. One aristocrat, the duc d'Aumont, was a major collector of this type of object. He supervised a workshop that produced hardstone vases, pedestals, and tabletops, which were often mounted with gilt bronze ornaments. When the duke's collection was auctioned after his death in 1782, competition for his objects was fierce. Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette purchased many of the pieces at that sale for large sums of money.