Pair of Early 19th Century French Bronze & Marble Tazzas of Particularly High Quality and Large Size

These tazzas are incredibly finely detailed and of the finest quality throughout. The bases of the tazzas themselves are cast with flowers tied with ribbons and the stem or socles have leaf castings which are extremely naturalistic and not stylised as is more usually the case. An outspreading mushroom-form knop supports the heavily gadrooned bowl and the rim has a fine egg and dart decoration and a beaded upper edge. The most outstanding feature of the pieces might be the handles which have beautiful mask form terminals, possibly representing Ceres the goddess of the harvest and plenty, the theme of the decoration overall therefore being abundance, entertaining and food. This suggests that they might originally have been designed to be placed in a dining room or entrance hall as symbols of the generous entertainments provided by the owners of the house. The handles also feature leaf and scrollwork and the casting is extremely crisp and clear. The bronzes have also attained a very fine patination with plenty of variation in colour and surface interest. The quality of the metalwork suggests a French origin for these wonderful pieces-the French bronziers being the most respected artisans in their field across Europe at this point. The tazzas stand on double Siena marble plinths, the lower one enclosed by another darted bronze moulding. The marble used for these plinths is extremely striking in its figure and the depth of colours in the veining. The finest materials were used in the construction of these pieces and they are of outstanding quality of design and execution.