Lot 133
  • 133

Henri Auguste

Estimate
15,000 - 25,000 USD
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Description

  • Henri Auguste
  • Design for a wine cooler
  • Pen and black ink and golden brown wash, heightened with white;
    bears Odiot Collection stamp in red ink, numbered 511 in pen and ink, over 77 in pencil; said to be inscribed (verso): Pour L'empereur de perse

Provenance

Masion Odiot, Paris

Exhibited

Paris, Hôtel Georges V, Odiot, October 1975, no. 61

Literature

Les Grands Orfèvres de Louis XIII à Charles X, Paris 1965, pp. 261, 271, 273;
Jean-Marie Pinçon and Olivier Gaube du Gers, Odiot, l'Orfèvre, Paris 1990, p. 71, illustrated

Catalogue Note

This and the following three lots are presentation drawings for objects intended as diplomatic gifts from Napoleon to Feth-Ali, Shah of Persia.  Following his victory over the Prussians at Iena in October 1806, Napoleon initiated an effort to bring the Shah onto the French side against the Russians, but General Gardanne's mission to Teheran in 1807 failed to achieve this.  Therefore, the gift was not delivered and was only partly completed.  The magnificent pair of wine coolers now in the Louvre may be the only objects made from these designs.  The present drawing has been dated around 1806, although the wine coolers appear not to have been made until 1809.  This and the other three objects are all decorated with Napoleon's bee emblem, but it is possible the Shah's coat-of-arms would have been added in the cartouche on this vessel.

Members of the Odiot family were active as silversmiths from the early 18th century, but it was Jean Baptiste Claude Odiot (1763-1850) who was most successful and received many commissions from Napoleon as well as from other noble families, such as the Demidovs.  One of his earliest surviving works is a coffee urn made for Thomas Jefferson and still at Monticello.

Henri Auguste also came from a family of goldsmiths.  He produced works for the French royal family before the Revolution, but also for Napoleon, making the transition to the Empire style.  He went bankrupt in 1809 and many of his drawings were bought by Odiot.