A pair of Louis XVI style gilt-bronze mounted blue porcelain vases and covers, after the model by Jean Dulac, late 19th century

Jean Dulac (17041786) was a Parisian marchand-mercier who specialized in the commercialization of Sèvres porcelain.  He appears consistently in the Sèvres sales register between 1758 and 1776 when he acquired the vast majority of vases of this model, known as vases cloches.  Dulac’s own advertising proclaimed him as “Dulac marchand gantier-parfumeur et bijoutier rue Saint Honoré près de l’Oratoire à la tête d’or” and he went on to state that he could provide: garniture de cheminées; vases montées en or moulu; girandoles; pendule de bureaux. 

The prototype of this particularly successful model appears to be a vase now in the Wadsworth Athenaeum, possibly originally supplied to Madame de Pompadour.  It conceals a silver reduction of the equestrian statue of Louis XV which had been unveiled in the place de la Concorde and is signed under the lid ‘Dulac Md rue St. Honoré Invenit’ (L. Roth and C. LeCorbeiller, French Eighteenth Century Porcelain at the Wadsworth Athenaeum, The J. Pierpont Morgan collects ion, London, 2000, fig. 65).  A pair of vases of this model with lion’s mask handles, was delivered to the King of Poland at Lazienski Palace in Warsaw; they are also signed, ‘Dulac Md. Rue St. Honore a Paris Invenit.  The use of the word ‘invenit´ confirms that Dulac did indeed invent this type of vase.