France, circa 1870

gilt bronze, porphyry

after the model by Pierre Gouthière

Please note that this piece currently located in Hong Kong

Porphyry reigns supreme among hardstones, long favoured by emperors and kings on account of its rich purple colour and remarkable hardness. Usually speckled with visible crystals, porphyries can come in an array of colours from green to black, but the most celebrated is the shade of purple used in these perfume burners.

Quarried by the Ancient Egyptians at incredible expense and human effort, porphyry’s coveted status derives in part from the high cultural value placed in the colour purple in Ancient Rome. Purple-trimmed togas or ceremonial togas in solid purple were only worn by the most important Ancient Roman magistrates, generals or the emperor himself and porphyry would retain this sense of glamour through its association with power and wealth throughout the medieval and Renaissance periods, right the way through to the eighteenth century, when the original model for these perfume burners was created.

During the eighteenth century, collectors developed a new taste for beautiful objects adorned with mounts made of gilt bronze. These mounts were made of cast bronze covered with a layer of gold applied with mercury; while they were initially intended to protect the pieces from damage at vulnerable sites like the rims, they would soon develop into an art form of their own and bring their imaginative, sculptural designs into dialogue with the object they enclosed.

Objects that were mounted included European porcelain from Meissen or Sèvres, far rarer porcelain pieces imported from China or Japan, and hardstone objects as on the present perfume-burners.

The basis for this design is one of the unquestioned masterpieces of French gilt-bronze work, the perfume burner by Pierre Gouthière that is in the Wallace Collection in London (inv. no. F292). This was made for the duc d’Aumont (1709-1782), an important nobleman who served the king in the esteemed role of Premier Gentilhomme de la Chambre and amassed a collection of some of the finest works of decorative arts produced in the eighteenth century. After his death, the perfume burner was bought by Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France who would be overthrown during the French Revolution and guillotined in 1793.

This perfume burner was created around a century after the Gouthière model, at a time when taste among French collectors and aficionados was highly antiquarian, and objects that had belonged to the royal family and particularly to Marie-Antoinette were highly desirable.