A silver oval oil basin. It stands on four console and scrol…
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Lot no. 44

Estimate: €6,000 - €8,000

Sale date : 11/20/2025 at 2:30 PM

Sale commission

Silver and goldware

Description

A silver oval oil basin. It stands on four console and scrolled feet, chased with a fall of fleurons and attached to the body by an acanthus scroll. The central part of the body, which is curved, is carved with alternating fleurons and lambrequins with tassels and flowers on an amati background. At the ends are lion's head masks. The upper border is chased with gadroons. The removable grille, chiselled with fillets, holds the bottles and stoppers. In the centre, a compartment chased with scrolls and flowers on a bitter background. The stoppers, edged with gadroons and with a doucine, are surmounted by an exploded fleuron. Master goldsmith: Jean Grégoire received in 1668 (his second hallmark, registered in 1697). Rennes 1706-1708 Condition report: The oil cruet is in good condition, with some light wear to the chasing. There are a few traces of soldering, minor knocks and traces of old restorations on the body. The unmarked stoppers are probably original. Length : 25.5 cm Width : 15.5 cm. Weight: 1083 g. Bibliography: Reproduced in Jacques Berroyer, Les Orfèvres de Haute-Bretagne, 2004, n° 68, p. 315 (then attributed to Jean-Baptiste Gérard). The oldest civil pieces preserved in Haute-Bretagne, dating from the last quarter of the XVIIᵉ century and the first decades of the XVIIIᵉ, still bear witness to a rigorous aesthetic inherited from the first half of the XVIIᵉ century, in particular from the Louis XIII period. Extremely rare, these works are often the exception, such as a sober ewer attributed to Michel Buchet around 1670, a stepped toilet torch adorned with the coat of arms of the La Bourdonnaye de Blossae family, a water pot made in Saint-Malo by Charles Lossieux in the 1690s, or a pinched rib bowl made by Jacques I Buchet at the very end of the century. This limited corpus, together with a few very simple bowls without lids and some rat-tail cutlery, provides only a fragmentary view of regional civil production during this period, almost all of which has disappeared due to the successive castings carried out over the centuries. From this perspective, the oil basin presented here is of a truly remarkable nature. With its chiselled fleuron decoration, it lies at the crossroads of styles and prefigures the ornamental forms that would later be known as the Régence style.

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