At the core of each is a substantial early 18th-century Chinese porcelain vessel with a deeply saturated red glaze known as sang-de boeuf, or oxblood. In their original form, each vase had a tall, slender neck, but soon after being made they were transformed in Paris with the addition of brilliantly expressive Rococo mounts in gilt bronze. Attributed to the great sculptor, designer, and goldsmith Jean-Claude Duplessis, the mounts embrace the vases’ porcelain bodies, elevating them on scrolling feet, introducing curling handles and a spiraling peak worthy of the grandest meringue.
China. Mounts attributed to Jean-Claude Duplessis. Purchased with funds provided by the Antiquarian Society
The porcelain itself was made by Chinese potters, almost certainly in the kilns at Jingdezhen. They achieved the deep-red glaze color by adding copper oxide, a notoriously challenging process. Subtle variations, ranging from a blueish blood-red to a yellowish tomato, suggest the potter’s struggle achieving an even tone.
Chinese culture was widely considered by Europeans to be intellectual, refined, and sophisticated, and its goods held appeal for consumers abroad even beyond their exquisite craftsmanship and rare materials. Oxblood-glazed porcelain in particular was highly valued, not only domestically but also in Europe, where it was a rarity among more widely available Chinese wares in celadon, blue and white, turquoise, or dark blue.
Jiangxi Province, China. The Royal Collection, RCIN 27784
The original vases would have had a taller neck with a flaring rim, much like this example from Britain’s royal collection.
These vessels were almost certainly among the cargo of one of the merchant ships funded by the French East India Company, which supplied elite customers with porcelain, lacquer, wallpaper, textiles, and other luxury goods from the Far East. By the mid-18th century, a corps of specialized merchants known as marchands merciers were established in Paris. They acted as retailers and designers, selling and commissioning interior furnishings and working with craftsmen to transform imported goods into chic and costly wares. An intrepid craftsman used a saw to cut the vases around their equators and shorten their tall necks in preparation for their embellishment.
The elaborate Rococo mounts that were added to these vases are attributed to Jean-Claude Duplessis (about 1695–1777). He is thought to have been born in Turin, where the Rococo style first flourished, and he enjoyed court patronage in Italy before arriving in Paris. In addition to his role as modeler for some of the most ambitious works of the Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory, Duplessis supplied models to the marchands merciers.
The Baron de Besenval in his Salon, 1791
Henri-Pierre Danloux. The National Gallery
Henri-Pierre Danloux’s 1791 portrait of the Baron de Besenval shows the learned man admiring his collection of bronze-mounted Chinese vases.
Detail of Danloux’s The Baron de Besenval in his Salon
Though the Rococo style rapidly fell from favor by the late 1760s, vases like Duplessis’s, emblematic of a revered and unfamiliar civilization, would have retained their interest for connoisseurs and collectors.
Duplessis’s designs often include naturalistically rendered flowers and foliage intertwined with purely abstract, undulating scrolls. These bronze mounts also feature the sort of highly detailed finish for which he was known, with textured surfaces that contrast with smooth, burnished areas.
The handles are composed of a symmetrical pairing of leaves, but a dangling flower hangs unevenly and erupts into c-shaped curves that have no basis in nature.
These stunning mounted vases, generously funded by the Antiquarian Society and on view now in Gallery 216, are the first of their kind to enter the Art Institute’s collection. They join a growing group of works that represent Europe’s fascination with the Far East.
—Ellenor Alcorn, Chair and Eloise W. Martin Curator, Applied Arts of Europe
French Rococo in the Collection
By the mid-18th century in France, attention once given to spiritual and religious matters shifted to a fascination with the earthly realm and its inhabitants. Representations of the heavens gave way to enchanting depictions of flora and fauna and to narratives of courtly love, all set within wildly creative decorative framing. Asymmetry and organic abstraction became the height of sophistication in a movement later dubbed Rococo, after the craggy rocks, or “rocaille,” that decorated French palatial gardens.
Jean Pierre Latz
Mythology, technology, and craftsmanship are interwoven in this gilt-bronze clock by Jean-Pierre Latz, official furniture maker to Louis XV, that could play six different tunes. Its fantastical design depicts the god Apollo slaying the serpent Python and features sinuous framing with flourishing candelabra.
Jean-Claude Duplessis
In addition to his work as a goldsmith and bronzier, Jean-Claude Duplessis oversaw the design of models at Vincennes Porcelain Manufactory (later Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory). Although France had not yet achieved the production of hard-paste porcelain like that imported from the Jingdezhen kilns, the nation—and Vincennes/Sèvres in particular—nonetheless established itself as the leader in soft-paste porcelain. Duplessis’s asymmetrical Rococo designs were perfectly suited for this more pliable material.
Jacques Dubois
Marchands merciers supplied the French elite with inventive goods evocative of foreign cultures yet distinctly Parisian in design. This slant-front desk, outfitted with Rococo cartouches and tendrils, uses layers of shellac varnish to suggest imported painted wood panels from Japan, giving it the illusion of an altered and antiquated object.
Jean-Claude Duplessis
Jean-Claude Duplessis designed his most ambitious vase In 1756, in celebration of the newly named Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory. The Vase à Tête d’Eléphant features two prominent, engrossingly detailed elephant heads, whose trunks once supported additional attachments for candles.
Pont-Aux-Choux Factory
As Rococo table centerpieces in sumptuous silver were melted down to supply ready cash, a market emerged for ceramic alternatives. Earthenware like this tureen and stand became a sought-after substitute.
