Pair of vases; France, late 19th century

Pair of vases; France, late 19th century
Glazed porcelain; bronze
Signed: "G. Leberre"
Bears a stamp on the base
Measurements: 67 x 25 x 21 cm.

Pair of vases or urns in the Sèvres style, Louis XVI style, made of porcelain glazed in dark cobalt blue (“bleu lapis”) with gilded bronze mounts. Each piece features an ovoid body resting on a balustrade foot and a square base, with two bronze side handles shaped like a semi-nude female figure in classical profile, a pinacle-topped lid, and a neck decorated with a bow and garland. On the front of each urn is a large circular medallion containing hand-painted scenes of 18th-century-inspired courtly romance; the rest of the surface is rendered in the characteristic intense cobalt blue.

The depicted scenes draw directly on the pictorial world of Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), the preeminent master of the gallant and sentimental scenes of the French Rococo, whose compositions of couples in gardens, amorous games, and episodes of family life enjoyed enormous iconographic popularity in later decorative porcelain. The dark blue background, known as “bleu lapis,” was one of the most celebrated colors of the Sèvres manufactory from the mid-18th century onward, used in the most prestigious commissions for the French court and, together with “bleu céleste,” became a hallmark of the house. During the 19th century, the European upper middle class, eager to emulate the refinement of those extremely costly 18th-century pieces, spurred an intense production of urns and vases “in the Sèvres style” such as this pair, which reproduced both the colored backgrounds and the pictorial scenes in the style of Fragonard, thereby satisfying the demand for decorative sumptuousness characteristic of the Napoleon III style and the decades that followed.