These two finely painted vases are a near pair but differ in that the vase with Diana and Endymion has two scenes in a continuous landscape, whilst on the other vase the depiction of Flora and Ceres is portrayed in two separate scenes.
On the first vase we see Diana in her chariot encountering the sleeping Endymion on one side and Diana being spied upon by Acteon. The second vase depicts Ceres, the goddess of agriculture and Flora who embodies Flowers and Spring.
The painting applied in minute ‘pointillist’ dots and the rounded features of the faces bears some similarities to a Buen Retiro plaque of the Holy Family in the Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan in Madrid which is inscribed “RL. Fca. de Porcelana de Su MD. Católica en el Buen Retiro – 1798”,[i] the lighter palette of our vases suggests an earlier date. The dense and scarcely translucent soft paste indicates a date towards the last quarter of the 18th century before the introduction of hard paste porcelain in around 1803.
Condition:
The Diana vase with some loss to gilding at rim, no restoration.
Second vase with long crack extending three quarters of one side and under the base, invisibly restored. Both with slight surface scratching.
References:
Ortega 1999
Angeles Granados Ortega et al., Manufactura del Buen Retiro 1760-1808, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, (Exhibition Catalogue, Madrid, 1999)
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[i] Ortega 1999, no. 177, pp. 322 & 323.
Price: £25,000
