PARIS, FRANCE.- Sotheby’s will offer on Monday 15 December, 2003, in Paris an ensemble of fine French and European silver, both rare and unusual. Very few silver pieces dating back to the 17th century appear on the market, and the sale of three pieces from that period is an exceptional event.
The oldest of the French pieces in the sale is a big silver statue (32.4 cm high) of Saint Geneviève, probably made by Jean II de Laon, bearing the silversmith’s mark of Paris, 1636-1637. The saint is portrayed as a shepherdess holding a dog in her left hand and a twisted crook in her right hand. She is richly dressed in a court mantle and a broad hat with a jagged brim, but her feet are bare. Born around 422 in Nanterre, in the region of Paris, Geneviève came from a rich aristocratic Gallo-Roman family. She took the veil at the age of fifteen after having miraculously cured her mother. When Attila, the King of the Huns, threatened to invade Paris, she succeeded in persuading Parisians not to flee from the city on his approach. It was she who launched the foundations for the first Basilica of Saint-Denis. Clovis and Clothilde, who were very devoted to Saint Geneviève, built a church named after her over her tomb. Geneviève is the patron saint of the city of Paris, and her relics are kept in the church of Saint Etienne du Mont behind the Pantheon, on a hill known as The Montagne Sainte-Geneviève (lot 152, estimate: € 80,000 to 120,000).
A fine silver crucifix on an oval stand is from the same period, Paris 1639-1640 (lot 149, estimate: € 8,000 to 12,000). An unusual pair of dressing-table candlesticks was made even earlier, around 1600, probably by Cristobal Joan, a Spanish silversmith from Tarragona, (lot 150, estimate: € 20,000 to 30,000).
An exceptional pair of toilet boxes, each in an oval and arched shape on six legs, bear the silversmith’s mark of Guillielmus van Eesbeeck, Brussels, 1707-1711. The light and delicate chasing is remarkable. French dressing-table boxes in silver are very much sought after by collectors, and when the boxes are Belgian, they are usually older and extremely rare (lot 151, estimate: € 100,000 to 150,000).
Sets of four candlesticks of the 18th century are extremely rare. This sale offers three! The first set bears the mark of Genoa, around 1760 (lot 89, estimate: € 25,000 to 35,000). A second set was made by Hugues Lossieux de la Vallée, Saint Malo, 1707-1708, and is engraved with the arms of the Le Gobien family of Brittany (lot 95, estimate: € 15,000 to 20,000). The most extraordinary set was made by François Rigal in Paris in 1736-1737. It has the arms of the Picot de Plédran family, who were of Scottish origin. They had settled in Saint Malo in the 16th century and made their fortune from maritime trading (lot 101, estimate: € 50,000 to 80,000). Among the pairs of candlesticks, the one by the well known silversmith Louis-Joseph Lenhendrick, produced in Paris in 1766-1767 and 1768-1769, bears the arms of the de Mareuil family from Picardy (lot 118, estimate: € 25,000 to 35,000).
The most precious piece of the sale is unquestionably the last lot, an exceptional blood jasper cup, set on a piedouche and mounted in enamelled gold, made by Jean-Valentin Morel, Paris 1854-1855, for the Duc de Luynes.
Morel was born in Paris in 1794, the son of a lapidary by profession, and related through his mother to a family of Parisian silversmiths. He became an apprentice to Adrien Vachette, a supplier of gold boxes, where he learned the traditional techniques of jewellers and silversmiths. When he set up on his own, he did not work with the expensive materials usually used by silversmiths for financial reasons but turned to other inlay techniques. The quality of his work is dazzling. As he suffered from bad health, he was obliged to stop working for a year, but then became head of the Fossin workshop where he revived the process of embossed work on gold, which he applied on objects made of hard stone. He became a partner of Henri Duponchel, with whom he produced ornamental vases, table silverware, jewellery sets and accessories, as well as a wide variety of ornaments combined together with great imagination, which earned him an international reputation. For example, he made the binding of a missal for Pope Gregory XVI, a table service for the King of Sardinia and several objects for the future William III of the Netherlands, and for the Duc de Luynes in France.
In 1846, business declined, and the two partners had a dispute. Morel left to settle in London, not far from the rival firms of Piccadilly, such as Storr and Mortimer, and Garrard, but he came up against English prejudices. He nevertheless enjoyed support from the French who had sought exile in England because of the Revolution of 1848, and was recommended to Queen Victoria, who granted him a permit as an official supplier. He received modest commissions but devoted all his energy to preparing for the Exposition Universelle of 1851, where he received the highest award. The jeweller’s most brilliant works were his cups in hard stone, made in the manner of the 16th century. At the end of 1852, having lost all financial backing, he was obliged to close his business and return to France. He opened a new workshop in Sèvres and made a cup in lapis lazuli for the English collector Henry Thomas Hope, which earned him the gold medal of the Exposition Universelle of 1855.
Despite his talent, Valentin Morel always had difficulty in carving a name for himself and only his courage and perseverance enabled him to win recognition. The Duc de Luynes (1802-1867), a great art lover and patron, supplied ideas and materials to silversmiths as they suffered from the economic difficulties of that period. Morel benefited from the generosity of the Duc de Luynes, who became one of his principal patrons. In 1854, he commissioned the circular blood jasper and gold mounted cup, in this sale, and gave Morel two antique cameos to decorate it. They were inlaid in garlands of small, multicoloured, enamelled flowers, to complete the ornamentation of the handles in the form of two enamelled mermaids with green, red and blue wings. This object, of a rare quality, has remained among the descendants of the Duc de Luynes to this day (lot 154, estimate: € 80,000 to 120,000).
