A Magnificent Pair of Empire Silver Oval Soup Tureens, Covers, Stands and Liners, Henry Auguste, Paris, 1804

the oval stands raised on four winged lion monopods and applied with crossed thyrsi bound by coiled serpents, the stems chased with overlapping leaves, the bodies applied on both sides with Love held Captive, in the form of Cupid seated on a swag between two classical maidens who grasp the tips of his wings, the neck applied with a band of urns, female masks linked by winged demi-lions, the forked serpent handles rising from classical female heads, the covers surmounted by serpent ring handles

Tedeschi Collection
Owston Collection, Australia

The designs of these tureens can be attributed to Jean-Guillaume Moitte (Paris 1746-1810), a source frequently used by Auguste.  In particular the frieze of demi-lions and the bold winged lion mask feet relate to a drawing of a tureen formerly in the collection of Auguste, subsequently in that of Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot, sold Sotheby's, New York, 26 October 1991, lot 31, and later sold Christie's, London, 22 May 2008, The Niall Hobhouse Collection, lot 118.

In 1785 Henry Auguste took over the very successful silver workshops of his father, Robert-Joseph.  The elder Auguste had helped codify and diffuse the Neoclassical style in silver, supplying clients across Europe including Louis XVI, George III, Catherine the Great, and Gustav III.  His son was instrumental in moving the style on to its next development, through his partnership with the sculptor Jean-Guillaume Moitte (1746-1810).  A pupil of Pigalle and Lemoyne, Moitte became a member of the Académie Royale in 1783 and established his position in avant-garde artistic circles with his sculptures for the Hotel de Salm (1784) and Ledoux's new tollhouses (1786-1787).  Although he received a Royal commission for one of the Grands Hommes series and showed the plaster at the Salon of 1789, he made a greater mark as a designer.  At Moitte's funeral, Quatremère de Quincy noted:

'Monsieur Moitte attracted notice from the beginning in his profession by numerous drawings that clearly reveal his style and also propagated the taste for antiquity for which he was an advocate.  His manner generally expressed and inspired greatness, and the style of his design contrasted with that of the generation preceding him, announcing a change of taste.'[1]

Moitte's biographer J. Lebreton noted that the sculptor gave Auguste "models for his finest works, which gave him a great superiority over all the other goldsmiths."[2]  Contemporary sources suggested that Moitte and his assistants supplied over a thousand drawings to Henry Auguste.[3]

This new style was enthusiastically received by an international clientele.  By 1787 Auguste was making Moitte-derived pieces for the Portuguese Duke de Cadaval,[4] who had also been a client of his father's, and for the Marchese di Circello, the newly appointed Neapolitan ambassador to Paris.  In 1789 the silversmith made a soup tureen for Prince Vladimir Galitzine and began an extensive service for Frederick, Duke of York, the second son of George III, in 1788, including a set of twelve four-light gilt candelabra, of which a pair are at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Among his foreign clients was William Beckford, who first admired his work in Madrid when he saw the toilet service of Madame d'Aranda, which he described as "by far the most exquisite chef d'oeuvre of the kind I ever saw."[5]  Beckford visited him in Paris between 1788 and 1802 and acquired, amongst other pieces, a gold ewer, a pair of gold tazza, and a jewel box in the form of a sarcophagus. 

Auguste’s most important commission was the order for the Emperor in 1804, the same year the present tureens were made, including such items previously associated with royalty such as the cadenas (cadinett) and the nefs signed “H AUGUSTE L’AN 1^er DU REGNE DE NAPOLEON” as a gift of the city of Paris.  The vast service included tureens, wine coolers and verrieres.[6]  However by 1806, at the moment when he was finishing the gilt toilet service for the Empress, he declared bankruptcy.  His troubles increased and in 1809 he left France for England and later retreated to Jamaica.  Condemned to prison, he died at Port au Prince on 4 September 1816.

Auguste signed these tureens in Paris in 1804, and they received a control mark used in Vienna between 1806 and 1808.  There are few candidates for expensive and splendid silver that would have been in these two places in the midst of the Napoleonic upheaval.   Austria, as part of the Third Coalition, was at war with France from 1803 to 1805, when they signed the Treaty of Pressburg.  This makes it unlikely that an Austrian traveler or even an Austrian ambassador was making an expensive purchase in Paris during this time.

Working from the other side, the two best candidates for possession of these tureens are the two consecutive Napoleonic ambassadors to Vienna: Count Alexandre de la Rochefoucauld, who served from the Peace of Pressburg to the Peace of Tilsit (January  1805 to July 7, 1807), and his successor General Antoine-François, Count Andréossy, who was named to the position in November 1806 and served as ambassador until 10 May 1809, when he was named Prefect and Governor of Vienna; the Austrian capital fell to Napoleon’s forces three days later.

Count Alexandre de la Rochefoucauld (1767-1841) was the younger son of the Duc de Liancourt; in 1788 he married the daughter of the Comte de Chastulé, who had extensive properties in Saint-Domingue and was related to Josephine de Beauharnais.  It was this connection with the First Counsel that inspired his return to France after emigrating during the Terror. Mme. de la Rochefoucauld was named Dame d’honneur to Empress Josephine, and Napoleon helped arrange the marriage of the couple’s daughter with Francesco Borghese, Prince Aldobrandini, brother of Prince Camillo Borghese who married Pauline Bonaparte.

Count Alexander was sent as ambassador first to the Court of Saxony, then to Vienna, where he found a quickly deteriorating situation, and he left Vienna in October, 1805; he was reappointed after the Treaty of Pressburg, and reported on the Austrian responses to the Creation of the Confederation of the Rhine (which stripped Francis II of his title of Holy Roman Emperor) and other elements of the Napoleonic system.  In 1806 he left Vienna to meet Napoleon in Berlin, and he worked to bring Saxony into the French camp.  Later ambassador to Holland, Count Alexander had a parliamentary career under the Restoration and supported Louis-Philippe before his death in 1841.

He was succeeded by a general, an indication of Napoleon’s hardening line towards the Austrians.  Antoine François, comte d'Andréossy (1761-1828) was born into a noble family and served as an artillery officer under the Bourbons.  He served in all of the major campaigns of the Revolutionary army, achieving the rank of general.  His diplomatic career began with his appointment as ambassador to London in 1802, a position he held until 1804 and the rupture of the Treaty of Amiens.  He returned to the army and took part in the battle of Austerlitz before being named minister plenipotentiary to Vienna in November, 1806. 

Andréossy served in Vienna through 1808, when the worsening situation led to the second siege of the city by Napoleon, and the French Emperor’s designation of his ambassador as Governor of the soon-to-be subjugated city on May 10, 1809.  It was remarked that the houses most affected by the French cannon were those of Austrians who had clamored most fervently for war with France; it was charged that Andréossy, an artillery officer familiar with Viennese society and government after two years of residence, had personally directed the bombardment.  Napoleon was pleased with Andréossy’s performance, and invested him with the Grand Eagle of the Legion d’honneur; in 1810 the general was named to the Council of State.  Appointed Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Andréossy continued to serve the army under the Bourbon Restoration.

[1]  Cited in Vasemania: Neoclassical Form and Ornament in Europe: Selections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, 2004, p. 126
[2]  Cited in Michael Snodin and Malcolm Baker "William Beckford's Silver," Parts 1 and 2, The Burlington Magazine, 22 November, December 1980, p. 739 and note 26
[3] Ibid.
[4]  A seau à verres in the Fondation Espirito Santo, Lisbon, illustrated Les Grands Orfèvres, Paris: Hachette, 1965, pp. 270-72
[5] Michael Snodin and Malcolm Baker, “William Beckford's Silver”, Parts 1 and 2, Burlington Magazine, 122 (November, December 1980)
[6]  Versailles et les Tables Royales en Europe, Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1993, pp. 343-348