Garden vases
Claude Ballin II (Paris 1661 - Paris 1754)
Category
Architecture / Features & Decoration
Date
1770 - 1800
Materials
Bronze
Measurements
1225 mm (Height)
Place of origin
France
Order this imageCollection
Lanhydrock, Cornwall
NT 880855
Summary
A pair of large 18th-century bronze garden urns with semi-gadrooned irons above sunburst female masks, flanked by lion mask and ring handles on acanthus supports, the lower body with twelve portrait medallions of classical subjects, on bell-shaped acanthus supports and square bases. On stone plinth.
Provenance
Acquired during transfer of the house to the National Trust. The urns once formed part of Lord Hertford's collection at the Chateau de Bagatelle in the Bois de Boulogne, west of Paris. They were modelled in the late 17th century by Louis Ballin, goldsmith to Louis XIV. Bagatelle was built for Marie Antoinette in the 1770s by her brother-in-law, the Comte d'Artois, later King Charles X, and it is possible that the urns were placed there then. Lord Hertford, who occupied Bagatelle in the mid-19th century, bequeathed the urns to Sir Richard Wallace. Wallace, in his turn, left them to his secretary, Sir John Murray Scott, who removed them to Nether Swell, Gloucestershire. They were bought from his sister by the 7th Viscount Clifden who brought them to Lanhydrock.
Makers and roles
Claude Ballin II (Paris 1661 - Paris 1754)