A French silver six piece tea and coffee service, Marc-Augustin Lebrun, Paris, circa 1845

comprising: teapot, coffee pot, milk jug, sugar basin and cover, slop bowl and tea urn on fixed stand, the compressed circular bodies applied with a coat-of-arms below 'style troubadour' mask and strapwork collars, cast openwork scroll and salamander bases, the handles, spouts and finials modelled as grotesque monsters, all with gilt interiors, the undersides stamped: 'LEBRUN'

Property of a California Estate, Sotheby's, New York, 27 April 1992, lot 229;
Private Collection

The arms are probably those of van Vossem of Flanders.

Marc Augustin Lebrun (1782-1859), who was trained under Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot (1763-1850), is considered to have been one of the foremost Parisian goldsmiths of his generation. The son of Louis-Zacharie Lebrun and his wife (née Colné), he was married in the parish of St. Paul, Paris, on 14 November 1809 to Marie Adélaïde Victoire Pinta (d. 1828), one of the children of Charlemagne Pinta (1742-1817), a farmer.

Throughout his long career, Lebrun operated from 40 quai des Orfèvres, from where his first mark was registered on 22 April 1808. At first, his silver was in a restrained neoclassical style but latterly it became noted for its extravagant interpretation of ‘style troubadour’ of which this present tea and coffee service is an excellent example. Various Lebrun pieces are in the Musée du Louvre, including a silver-gilt tea urn in the classical style (1827) and a coffee pot and tea urn (circa 1845), the spout of the latter in the form of a crocodile.