Round silver BASSINOIRE, the lid decorated with fleurs-de-li - Lot 47

Round silver BASSINOIRE, the lid decorated with fleurs-de-lis, rosettes and quatrefoils. The center engraved with a double coat of arms stamped with a duke's crown. Paris, 1660. Master-gilder : Charles Petit. Diameter: 26 cm Length to handle attachment: 39 cm Weight : 2,443 kg (Handle missing, dents). Wedding coat of arms of Gaspard-César-Charles de Lescalopier (May 19, 1706-November 22, 1792), Seigneur de Liancourt et de Crémery and Anne le Clerc de Lesseville (June 25, 1712-April 1, 1783), married in Charbonnières (Eure-et-Loir) on September 16, 1737. He was Intendant of the Montauban Generalitat from 1740 to 1756, then of the Tours Generalitat from 1756 to 1766, and Conseiller d'Etat ordinaire in 1778. The Musée du Louvre received a donation of a pot à oille tray (OA 9654) from 1721-1722 and a pot spoon (OA 9712) of the same date, engraved with the same alliance arms. This family thus had a second-hand goldsmith's trade, as is also attested by this basin dated 1660, on which the arms, now faded, were initially embellished with palms and stamped with a duke's crown, still visible today. Provenance : - Probably ducal family in 1660. - Gaspard de Lescalopier and Anne de Lesseville collection, circa 1737, then descended. - Former Puiforcat collection. Exhibitions : - April 12-May 13, 1926, Paris, Musée des Arts décoratifs, Orfèvrerie Française Civile du XVIIe siècle au début du XIXe siècle, n°1. - May 1938, New-York, Metropolitan Museum, Three centuries of French Domestic Silver, illustrated (fig. 5). Bibliography: Henry Nocq, Le poinçon de Paris, Floury 1926-1931, tome 3, p. 317, illustrated. Of Spanish origin, the bassinoire was introduced into France in the 17th century. Rarely made in silver, used and reserved for the Court of Louis XIV, bassinoires were among the first pieces to be sacrificed during casting campaigns.