A silver gilt travel service in a box
Comprising an ecuelle and stand, cup and saucer, egg cup, salt, knife, fork, spoon, coffee spoon and fruit knife with a steel blade. The ecuelle on a waisted base decorated with Neoclassical reliefs and mascarons. The handles terminating in finely chased figures of cherubs holding laurel arches. The slightly domed lid with an engraved band of foliate and a finial designed as a moth. The other pieces with corresponding décor, the outer faces and the cutlery all engraved with the conjoined monogram “AMQ”. In a fitted gilt embossed red leather case lined with green velvet. H of ecuelle 13, diameter of plate 21.5 cm. Total weight without knives 2,076 g. H of case 23.5, W 38.5, D 25.5 cm.
Paris, marks of Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot, 1809 – 19. The cutlery by Pierre-Benoit Lorillon and Francois-Charles Gavet.
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
Cf. Frégnac, Les Grand Orfèvres de Louis XIII à Charles X, Lausanne 1965, p. 290 ff. For more on Odiot cf. also Gay-Mazuel, Odiot, Un Atelier d'Orfèvrerie, Paris 2017, with copious illustrations.