Chiselled, patinated and ‘vieux ton or’ gilded bronze; glass.
H. 157 cm. (62 in.); W. 76 cm. (30 in.); D. 60 cm. (23 in.).
MARK: F. BARBEDIENNE, incised on the edge of the top of the base.
PROVENANCE: collection of Alice Tahl (Baltimore, 1851- Biarritz, 1913), known as ‘Madame de Lancey’, mistress of the banker Nissim de Camondo, in her hôtel particulier located 23 rue Vernet, in the 8th arrondissement à Paris; her auction in Paris, « Catalogue des objets d’art et de riche ameublement […] le tout appartenant à Madame de Lancey, Garnissant son Hôtel à Paris, et le Pavillon de La Du Barry, à Louveciennes», galerie Sedelmeyer, 4 rue de La Rochefoucauld, in the 9th arrondissement, Mes Jules Plaçais and Georges Duchesne, December 10, 11, 12 and 13, 1890, lot n° 157.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: « Edouard Lièvre », Hors-Série de Connaissance des Arts, Paris, 2004, pp. 30-31, repr.; Roberto Polo, Roberto Polo, The Eye, A selection of masterpieces from the collections which he has formed, London, 2011, pp. 192-193.
A masterpiece of the Japonisme style in the field of decorative arts, this aquarium has been imagined and designed by Edouard Lièvre (1828-1886) and executed in Paris in the workshops of Ferdinand Barbedienne (1810-1892), from whom it bears the signature. Another aquarium of the same model is kept in the collections of Topkapi Palace, the official residence of the ottoman sultans, in Istanbul.
Edouard Lièvre was one of the most productive and talented industrial designers of the second half of the 19th century, the brilliant author of a large array of creations: furniture bronzes, ceramics, richly adorned pieces of furniture in the Japanese or Renaissance styles. He had these pieces made by the greatest Parisian maisons – Barbedienne for the bronzes, Christofle for goldsmithery – and the most in fashion marchands de nouveautés such as l’Escalier de Cristal. Thanks to his immense artistic talent and his erudition, he was always able to avoid pastiche. He only had high profile clients, among which the Rothschild, the Vanderbilt, Edouard André, the actress Sarah Bernhardt, the painter Edouard Detaille, or else « Madame de Lancey ».
