A Louis XVI gilt-bronze mounted Greek green porphyry covered vase, circa 1780, the mounts attributed to Pierre Gouthière and possibly desgined by Jean-François Bélanger

This cassolette in green Greek porphyry, also known as "antique serpentine", testifies to the taste for hard stones at the end of the 18th century. All the great collectors and cabinets of connoisseurs were obliged to own hardstone objects, including the Duchesse de Mazarin, Pierre-Louis Randon de Boisset, Monsieur de Gaignat, Pierre Crozat, the Marquis de Marigny and above all the Duc d'Aumont (1709-1782). Porphyry was given pride of place. The sale of the latter's collection on December 12, 1782 featured a large number of these vases, most of them mounted with gilded bronzes. The stones were sought after as far afield as Italy, and some were cut and polished in the workshop the Duke created in the Hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs du Roi on the Faubourg Poissonnière. In Remiremont, Lorraine, the king opened a "Manufacture privilégiée du Roi" (King's privileged factory) specializing in the cutting and carving of hard stones, which were then sold in Paris. M. Valmont-Bomare, in Dictionnaire Raisonné Universel D'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, 1791: "On vient d'ouvrir à Paris le Magasin ou Dépôt des Ouvrages en roches, composées de granits, granitelles, jaspes, serpentins & porphyres, exécutés à la Manufacture privilégiée du Roi établie à Remiront en Lorraine. These works will enable the public to judge the beauty of the materials; the purest forms, taken from ancient times, have been chosen; some simple gilded bronze fittings have been added, but in good taste and with the finest finish. (...) In this depot, we find vases of all shapes, columns, girdles and pedestals for busts".

The models were created from designs by ornamentalists such as the architect-ornamentalist François-Joseph Bélanger, while the carving was entrusted to sculptors such as the Genoese Augustin Bocciardi or the French Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Delaplanche, and the bronze mounts to Pierre Gouthière in some cases. Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette bought several vases at the Duc d'Aumont sale, including two pairs of urns in green porphyry now in the Louvre (OA 5719 and OA5178), whose preparatory drawings by François-Joseph Bélanger, then reproduced by Adrien Pâris in the duke of Aumont's catalogue sale,  are held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France.Our cassolette is similar to those of the Duc d'Aumont.
Ours is surprising in its shape and the arrangement of the gilded bronze ornaments. In fact, the crown of water leaves on which the acanthus leaves of the handles terminate is visible if the object is placed high enough to have a counter-plunging view, which is corroborated by the absence of ornamentation on the upper part of the vase. The faces and busts of the women forming the handles are particularly expressive and delicately chiseled.