Smelling-salts bottle with floral decoration
Smelling-salts bottle with floral decoration
France, Paris
1753–1754
Ducrollay, Jean
Gold, enamel; basse-taille enamelling
10.3 × 4.8 × 1.8 cm
Marks: maker’s mark; charge mark of Julien Berthe, 1750–1756; unidentified control mark; date letter N, 1753–1754
The front and back of this scent bottle are decorated in green and blue basse taille enamel with ribbon-tied flowers including botanically fanciful renderings of convolvulus and cornflower. Slightly earlier, Ducrollay had employed similar decoration on a carnet, marked with the date letter K (1750–1752), today in a private collection. Charles Truman made a connection between this carnet and a spy-glass in the James A. de Rothschild Collection, Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, made within the same date bracket by Hubert Cheval and decorated in basse taille with convolvulus. He went on to argue that such similar work by two of the leading goldsmiths of the day might indicate the involvement of a marchand-mercier who coordinated production. A gold box in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, possibly by Jean Frémin, with the date letter for 1752–1753 and enamelled in green and blue with flowers provides further evidence that this particular form of decoration was then at the height of fashion.
6798MC893/ДПИ