A Pair of Spanish Gilt-Bronze Lions, Circa 1720

Ethel Mary Crocker and André de Limur, Paris and Washington, D.C;

By descent to Alexander Charles Crocker de Limur (1923-2004), San Francisco, by 1969;

By descent, Crocker de Limur family;

Sotheby's London, 10 July 2014, lot 134;

Where acquired by Aso O. Tavitian.

This finely detailed pair of lions previously belonged to the esteemed collection of the Comtesse Ethel Mary Crocker and Compte André de Limur. Their collection included works by renowned artists such as Monet, Picasso, Kandinsky and Yeats, and their children and grandchildren continued this tradition and contributed greatly to the family collection at the Palais Royal in Paris during the 1960s. The noble couple’s impeccable taste and eye for collecting superior works is evident in the present lions, with their beautifully chased and detailed surfaces. The two lions sejant support shields bearing the arms of the city of Madrid: a madroño tree and a bear rampant, the symbol of Madrid, and the chained Moor symbolising the Islamic invasions and their defeat by the Spanish in 1492.