Pair of urns

Pair of urns. France, XIX century.
Gilded bronze and marble.
Measurements: 24 cm (height x2).
Pair of ornamental urns of historicist style, whose forms are inspired by the aesthetics of classical antiquity. They consist of an ovoid container in marble, of expressive veined and gilded bronze in the superior appliqués, in a detail of the base and in the zone of the shoulders where goat heads stand out that are united by a great bronze garland that is arranged by the superior zone of the body. Both cups consist of a prismatic base, with sharp edges and smooth, and on it is placed directly the foot, worked with the synthetic and refined style typical of the time. The bronze ornamentation stands out especially for the quality of the chisel work, which reproduces the texture with great expressiveness. Over the ovoid shape of the body there is an intermediate neck that forms the union with the vessel, ovoid following classicist models.
This type of work appeared very often in gardens as early as the Renaissance. However, in this period it was more common to find them in lighter marble and, as a general rule, without color combinations in the stone. It would be the Baroque that would add color to this type of compositions (except for the sculptures influenced by Ancient Rome that combined colored marbles, earlier). However, it seems that it was not until the change that the nineteenth century brought in the approaches of private gardens of important residences that the combination of colors and those lines so contrasted with each other (straight with curves, without reaching the Rococo movement) that this type of decorative works made widespread appearance in the exteriors of palatial residences both urban and more "rural".
As usual in the 19th century, the influence of examples of Greek and Roman antiquity is clear, but combining these details to adapt them to the taste and purpose that would be intended in the century in which they would be created (smaller size than the vases on pedestals of Renaissance and Mannerist noble gardens, the color in the materials already mentioned, the adaptation of the lines in the vase, etc.).