A PAIR OF PARIS PORCELAIN VASES, DIHL FACTORY, WITH GILDED BRONZE MOUNTS, CIRCA 1798-1810 |

the canopic jar shape vase, the green background imitating pietra dura, the neck flanked with three gilt-bronze Egyptian heads, on three pairs of feet on a circular base ; unmarked

The porcelain in good condition.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

The Dihl and Guérhard porcelain factory is one of the few Parisian manufacturers created under the Ancien Régime to have survived the French Revolution and was successful during the early 19th century. The reasons for this persistence and prosperity are manifold but are largely due to the owners’ personalities and competence. The sculptor, Christophe Dihl partnered with the Parisian bourgeois Antoine Guérhard and his wife Louis-Madeleine Croizé on 25 February 1781, to establish a porcelain factory along Rue de Bondy. One brought his trade, talent, skills and a large quantity of moulds and the couple provided funding of  8,000 French pounds. To avoid the prohibitions formulated via privileges granted to the Sevres factory, they placed themselves under the patronage of the very young Duke of Angouleme. In 1785, the manufactory already employed 12 sculptors and 30 painters and proclaimed to be accablée de commandes et vendre considérablement (overwhelmed with orders and sold considerably). In 1787, a contemporary estimated that the Dihl and Guérhard manufactory égale à quelque chose près celle de Sèvres (was closely equivalent to that of Sèvres). That same year, the partnership earned 432,000 French pounds and moved the factory to the Bergeret townhouse, which they bought along Rue du Temple. Famous visitors followed one after another such as the Baroness of Oberkirch accompanied by the Duchess of Bourbon in 1786 and remarked the magnificent vases and serving sets. Gouverneur Morris, U.S. Representative in Paris, bought porcelain for George Washington in 1789, noting in his diary: « we find that the porcelain here is more elegant and cheaper than it is at Sèvres ». The year VI (1797-1798) was a milestone year for Christophe Dihl. He married Madame Guérhard, a widow since 1793, in the presence of the manufactory’s best painters: Piat-Joseph Sauvage, Etienne-Charles Le Guay and his young wife Marie Victoire Jaquotot. That same year, Le Guay realized the portrait of Christophe Dihl on porcelain plating, now kept at the Sèvres Museum displayed on a desk alongside a spindle-shaped vase with band, tortoiseshell ground and decorated with a frieze of children in grisaille probably by Piat-Joseph Sauvage. On the 28th Brumaire year VI and 1st Thermidor year VI (28 October - 1 July 1797), Dihl exhibited at the Salon several paintings executed onto porcelain panels and received an award at the Exhibition of Industry Products in 1798 for porcelain paintings including the large plaque by Sauvage, now housed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels (see Cyrille Froissart and John Whitehead: « Le peintre Piat-Joseph Sauvage et la porcelaine », Les Cahiers de Mairemont, 32-33, 2005, pp. 35-39 ). Also noteworthy was the plating decorated with a Chinese pheasant and parrots painted by Jacques Barraband, recently sold (auction Bordeaux, Briscadieu firm, 17 November 2018, lot 232).

Dihl's research on colors, the variety of created grounds mimicking agate, lapis, jasper, tortoiseshell, vermeil or bronze with Antiquity patina, partnered with brushes belonging to talented painters, Le Guay or Sauvage already cited but also Drölling, Demarne and Swebach enabled the manufactory to be considered during the late 18th century and under the French Empire as the prime of Europe. The large vases painted by Swebach against tortoise shell-like ground from the former collection of Robert Balkany attest to the degree of perfection reached in the imitation of textures by the Dihl factory (Sotheby's auction, Paris, 20 September 2016, lot 25). Christophe Dihl sold some of his stock in several auctions in London in 1814 and 1816. Though the presented vases do not seem to appear there, the descriptions of vases in the catalogues reflect the great diversity of materials simulated on the colored grounds: clouded olive ground, clouded blue ground, bronze colour ground, tortoiseshell ground, sky-blue ground, veined with gold, gold ground etc. (Christie’s, 6-9 mai 1814 et Phillips, 8 juin 1816). Régine de Plinval de Guillebon illustrated a pair of Dihl vases with blue agate ground that the author dated around 1795 and whose hues are comparable to those on our vases (Régine de Plnval de Guillebon, Faïence et porcelaine de Paris XVIIIe siècle – XIXe siècle, 1995, p. 151).

The source of inspiration for the format of our vases and Egyptian bronze masks along the mid-section is perhaps the drawings made by Dominique Vivant-Denon during the Egyptian campaign alongside Bonaparte and published in 1802 in his Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt during the campaigns of General Bonaparte in that country. Our vase’s ovoid shape and the head veiling appear on two prints with vases and hieroglyphic hairstyles. Numerous impressions from Vivant-Denon’s publications were used by the Sèvres manufactory after 1804 for the decoration and configurations of the Egyptian service and cabaret tray sets.

Between 1804 and 1811, Emperor Napoleon I and Josephine made several orders from the Dihl factory. In 1804, Napoleon gifted King Charles IV of Spain a gilt bronze table decorated with panels painted by Le Guay and Sauvage (Regine de Plinval de Guillebon, Faïence et Porcelaine de Paris, XVIIIe -XIXe siècle, 1995, p. 294). The Spanish Court also received in 1804 a very large pair of tortoise shell ground spindle-shaped vases kept at the Royal Palace of Madrid. Joséphine de Beauharnais and Prince Eugene commissioned in 1811 two gilt ground services decorated with paintings, today mostly held at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg (Atalia Kasakiewitsch, "Das Service of Eugene de Beauharnais", Keramos, No. 141, July 1993, pp. 13-32).

A pair of slightly larger vases, signed Dihl in red under the base, was sold by Sotheby's in 1995 (Sotheby's, London, 16 June 1995, lot 387). An almost identical pair is in a private collection.