Cups; Italy, c. 1800.

Cups; Italy, c. 1800.
Brocatel marble and mercury gilded bronze mounts.
Measurements: 64 x 34 x 31 cm (x2).
Pair of classicist-inspired goblets carved in brocatel marble, highlighting their natural qualities and colors. Both stand on a very simple base of quadrangular format, which gives way to a foot defined by a round perimeter adorned with mercury-gilded bronze mount. The body of each of the cups has a very expressive design with an ovoid lower zone, narrow body and large diameter shoulders. Above these is a bronze applique in the form of a lion's skin, with the face in the center of each of the cups. The two pieces have a completely separable upper lid, with a smooth curved profile, topped with a gilded bronze handle. The pieces follow classicist models, with elegant and clean profiles, directly inspired by works of strong classicist influence (however, probably closer to works of the Renaissance than to Greek and Roman Antiquity itself).
This type of work appeared very often, as early as the Renaissance. However, in this period it was more common to find them in lighter marbles and, as a rule, without color combinations in the stone. As usual in the 19th century, the influence of examples from Greek and Roman Antiquity is clear, but combining these details to adapt them to the taste of the time. The combination of these apparently disparate elements is, however, effective at the expressive level, and manages to maintain the classical rigor while leaving room for the ornamental fantasy so much to the taste of the bourgeois clientele of the second half of the nineteenth century.