An Empire silver gilt ewer and basin
The jug of oval section with lowered shoulders and a rounded spout on a waisted oval base decorated with a band of stiff foliage. The outer surface applied with three reliefs of ladies in classical attire. The handle formed as a winged female genius standing on a faun mascaron. The semi-spherical basin with corresponding décor, the handles terminating in finely chased swan's heads. Pitcher H 39.5, basin W 4, D 33.3 cm, total weight 3,932 g.
Paris, marks of Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot, 1798 - 1809.
The Odiot dynasty of goldsmiths began as early as 1690 with Jean-Baptiste-Gaspard, a supplier to the court of King Louis XIV.
His grandson, Jean-Baptiste-Claude, like his father before him, continued the family tradition into the 18th and 19th centuries, receiving important orders from the court of Napoleon Bonaparte. These included such prestigious commissions as the making of the emperor's coronation sword, and in 1812 he collaborated with Thomire and Pierre-Paul Prudh'on in the construction of the magnificent cradle for the king of Rome, a gift from the city of Paris to the newborn heir, which is now housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Odiot's distinctive style, using motifs from Greek antiquity and Ancient Egypt, gained him commissions from almost all the royal courts of Europe, and his works can now be found in major public collections throughout the world.
Literature
These handles in the form of winged figures can be found in many of Odiot's works, for example see Gay-Mazuel, Odiot, Un Atelier d'Orfèvrerie, Paris 2017. no. 13 ff for a tea service for Countess Branicka with identical decorative elements in the Wilanów palace in Warsaw, illus. Ibid. p. 154. Cf. Also works by this maker in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illus. in Dennis, Three centuries of French domestic silver, New York 1960, p. 179 ff.