Stiebel, Ltd.
PAIR OF SEVRES VASES
The baluster-shape vases of the “Lancel” model have a chocolate colored ground with platinum and
gilded ornament. Medallions on the front are painted with trompe l’oeil cameos depicting Aesculapius,
and Hippocrates. The reverse is painted with grisaille trophies of pharmaceutical emblems above
inscriptions (see below).
The vases are mounted on square gilt bronze plinths inscribed on the underside with the number 65121.
Height 13 inches (33 cm)
French, Sèvres 1829
Provenance: King Louis Philippe, Grand Trianon, Versailles
The Sèvres factory archives record the manufacture of these vases in 1829 and their delivery to the
Grand Trianon on June 9, 1837.
The modest “citizen king” Louis Philippe who reigned from 1730-1748, lived with his family in the
Grand Trianon while he saved the main palace of Versailles from destruction and had it restored as a
museum to the glories of France.
The decoration of these vases refers to classical antiquity and the history of medicine.
On the vase with the profile identified in the cameo as AESCULAPE (Greek god of medicine)
The verso inscriptions are:
EROPHILE (Athenian heroine in Madeleine de Scudéry’s Histoire de Pisisitrate )
ANDROMAQUE (wife of Achilles, widowed in the Trojan War and the heroine of plays by Euripides
and Racine)
NICANDRE (2nd century B.C. Greek doctor and pharmacologist)
CELSE (1st century B.C. to 1st century A.D. Roman doctor and author of a medical treatise)
On the vase with the profile identified in the cameo HIPPOCRATES (5th century B.C. Greek physician,
known as the father of medicine)
The verso inscriptions are:
POLYBE DE CO (2nd century B.C. Greek historian)
SCRIBONIOUS LARGUE (1st century A.D. physician to Roman Emperor Claudius) ARETOEUS (?)
GALIEN (2nd century A.D. diagnostician and surgeon)
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