This pair of pots-pourris can be compared to two different vases with identical porcelain. One, from Luton Hoo, marked with the crowned C, was sold at Christie’s London on 9 June 1994 (lot 32), and is an earlier example of rocaille; the second, sold at Sotheby’s Monaco on 14 December 1996 (lot 68), has a coral-branch knop - also to be found on the lacquered pots-pourris in the Louvre (inv. A 5148) and the Meissen pots-pourris (c.1750) from the Château de Groussay sold by Sotheby’s/Poulain-Le Fur on 2 June 1999 (lot 350).

The style of these vases is traditionally associated with the second rocaille period, with its more abundant, often symmetrical, vegetation and less complex motifs.

Necessarily later than the period when the crowned C was in use (1745-49), such pots pourris date from 1750 onwards. An identical pierced gilt-bronze collar, between the cover and handle, can be found on the magnificent famille noire porcelain pot-pourri vase in the Dimitri Mavrommatis Collection sold at Sotheby’s London on 8 July 2008 (lot 64).

Lazare Duvaux’s Livre-Journal, detailing the commercial activity of one of the most important Paris marchands-merciers between 1748 and 1758 (and a specialist in this type of mounted porcelain), mentions several pairs of pot-pourri vases, but the host of terms employed to describe the porcelain (colour, physical appearance) generally make identification impossible in the absence of other information. The alphabetical table in the Livre-Journal provides a wealth of information, citing several possible adjectives: (porcelain) speckled/green celadon/celadon. Amidst all the terminology, one particular entry catches the eye: ‘15 December 1756,n° 2650: Mme la Ctesse de Bentheim: two celadon pots-pourris mounted in bronze gilded with ormolu, 288 livres.’

The collection of the Dukes of Bouillon is particularly instructive in this context. The 1771 inventory of Charles Godefroy de La Tour d’Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon, refers to ‘two green celadon sablé porcelain pot-pourri urns garnished in gilt bronze’* (ANMC LX VIII 540). At his death, his son owned ‘two covered celadon porcelain pots-pourris with handles, neck and base garnished in bronze, value seventy-two livres’ and ‘two celadon porcelain pots-pourris garnished in bronze, two others, coloured, of the older sort, with small feet within the porcelain, value thirty livres.’ The Dukes of Bouillon thus possessed at least three pairs of celadon pot-pourri vases
- a significant number, given the handful recorded in the 18th century, and the few existing pairs known today.