A pair of large Empire gilt and patinated bronze ewers, circa 1810

By descent to his great-granddaughter, Rognieda Stecki, Countess Zamoyski (1885-1922);

Her son Count Tomasz Zamoyski (1909-1995);

Bequeathed by the above to the present owner, a member of the family.

Józef August Ilinski was a Polish nobleman, who supported the Russian presence in the country and who became extremely close to Emperor Paul I. Made count by the emperor in 1779, he was raised to chamberlain in 1793 and was also senator and part of his council.

As one of the richest men in the territories of the former Commonwealth, Count Ilinski built an enormous palace to match his fortune and position at his family estate, Romanow, in the region of Volhynia, now in Ukraine. This classical building was started in the last decade of the 18th century and was lavishly furnished, including with many gifts from the Emperor, reputedly from one of his mother’s imperial palaces, and with a collection of important Old Master paintings.

Burnt down in 1876, its impressive appearance is known from an 1861 print, and interestingly there is a watercolour of a drawing room interior view showing a pair of ewers of similar appearance and unusal scale of the present lot.

This design for an ewer (or aiguières in French) was much appreciated amongst Russian and English collectors and it typically adopted patinated bodies, raised on plinths and embellished with handles featuring classical figures or animals and stylized foliage.

Claude Galle was amongst the greatest bronziers and fondeur-ciseleurs of the late Louis XVI and Empire periods who particularly enjoyed using this form. These present vases, of exceptional size, are related to Galle's 'maiden' vases and his popular series of ewers, examples of which remain at Pavlovsk, and which are illustrated in H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. I, figs. 5.12.6 and 5.12.9, pp. 364-365.