Style Napoleon III / Ref.16870

Ferdinand Barbedienne (attrib. to) and Klein, sculptor - Pair of bud vases with putti décor

Gilded bronze, cloisonné enamels, engraved glass.

This charming pair of bud vases were made around 1880 out of gilded bronze and cloisonné enamels. They are both signed by the sculptor “Klein”. Two children, a little boy and a little girl support the vases, they are made out of gilded bronze and stand to the side of the vases. The cone shaped vases are made out of engraved glass. They rest on a base decorated with cloisonné enamel, a technique often used in Ferdinand Barbedienne's work. A décor of foliage and flowers on a blue background covers the base, also often found in Barbedienne's work.

Somewhat forgotten, enamel art re-emerged at the peak of the Second Empire and the first attempts at enamel art made by Barbedienne were in 1858. Four years later, at the Universal Exhibition of London, the objects of art encrusted in enamel shown on Barbedienne's stand, caused a sensation. Incorrectly referred to at the time as “opaque, flushed cloisonné enamels in the style of the old ones”, these enamels are actually closer to medieval champlevé enamel. The technical innovation of the Parisian firm thus aimed to directly obtain, through the employment of smelting, a large quantity of cloisonné enamel, with careful precision. The bud vases presented here are thus representative of this revival of the use of enamel as well as the revival of Barbedienne's techniques. True cloisonné enamel, in fact didn't reappear until the Exhibition of 1867, thanks to Tard, under the name “cloisonné enamel returned”.