A Pair of French Louis XVI Style Gilt Bronze Mounted Granite Ewers stamped HD for Henry Dasson, Paris, Last Quarter 19th Century

Born in Paris during the reign of Charles X, Henry Dasson (1825-1896) trained and worked as a clockmaker and in 1871 purchased the stock and workshop of the recently deceased cabinetmaker Charles Winckelsen from his widow, becoming one of the leading producers of Louis XIV, XV and XVI revival pieces in Paris, specializing in high quality reproductions of important royal pieces. His background allowed him to distinguish himself from his contemporaries by also developing an important production in gilt bronze clocks, candelabra, wall lights and mounted marble and porcelain objects based on eighteenth-century designs. He often signed his work either with Henry Dasson et Cie or the stamp HD as found on the present lot. He was a regular exhibitor at the Paris Expositions Universelles and in 1883 received the Légion d’Honneur.

Dasson was particularly influenced by the work of the Louis XVI court bronzier Pierre Gouthière (1732-1813) and borrowed many of his ornamental motifs, such as the entwined snake handles that famously appear on several of Gouthière’s most celebrated works like the pair of large Celadon porcelain vases with mounts designed by the architect François-Joseph Bélanger commissioned by the Duc d’Aumont in 1782 (Paris, Louvre). A pair of gilt and patinated bronze double snake-handled vases signed Dasson was sold Christie’s Paris, 18 April 2019, lot 156, and a gilt-bronze mounted jasper perfume burner by Dasson on a snake-entwined athénienne base after Gouthière was sold Bonham’s London, 26 September 2018, lot 380. Other pairs of gilt-bronze mounted ewers or vases by or attributed to Dasson include a pair of ewers in porphyry at Christie’s London, 4 December 2008, lot 27, and a pair of red marble covered vases at Christie’s New York, 18 April 2013, lot 50.y of