A highly important Empire silver-gilt wine cooler by Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot of which the design is attributed to Auguste Garneray after a model attributed to Charles-Jean-Alexandre Moreau. The wine cooler stamped twice, once on the underside of the base and also on the side of the base Odiot à Paris and mounted on both sides of the body with the Potocki Pilawa coat of arms inscribed with the motto Scutum Opponebat Scutis and also engraved with the Potocki arms but without the family motto on the outer side of the inner ice bucket. With a circular gadrooned lip above a plain neck and stiff leaf foliate banding, flanked by a pair of bifurcated serpentine handles, each with the dual heads of a snake resting on the top of the lip and whose scaled bodies and tails issue from acanthus foliate-wrapped bases that rest on the upper sides of vase-shaped body, of which the lower part of the body is applied and chased with palm and water leaves above a spreading circular foot with gadrooned beading. The interior with a solid silver-gilt removable ice bucket with circular rim and straight sides. Fully hallmarked on the base (with the head of a young man facing to the left denoting Paris 1819 and with a bearded man facing to the right denoting purity 950), again hallmarked on the side of the base (with a lamp and the head of a greyhound for Paris 1819) and also hallmarked (with the head of a lady equating to Paris 1819) under the rim on the outside of the liner

Paris, dated 1819

Height 32 cm, diameter of the base 13 cm, weight 3 kilo. Purity 950

Provenance: Almost certainly acquired by Count Stanislaw Kostka Potocki (1755-1821) from Maison Odiot as part of a grand table service, 14^th May 1819.

This magnificent wine cooler, which was undoubtedly supplied to Count Stanislaw Kostka Potocki of Poland (1755-1821) by Odiot à Paris was made during the firm’s greatest period when the esteemed business was run by Jean-Baptiste Claude Odiot (1763-1850). A tour de force, it epitomises the overt classical design and attention to quality that led Odiot to prominence as one of the greatest gold and silver manufacturing concerns during the Empire and Restauration periods. Of historic origins, the family run business was founded in 1690. Based in Paris, Jean-Baptiste Claude’s grandfather Jean-Baptiste Gaspard Odiot (1692-1767) was recognized as one of the finest goldsmiths during Louis XV’s reign and as head of one the most prestigious eighteenth century manufactures d’orfèvrie, was granted the title of royal supplier, owing to Odiot’s ability in creating exceptional pieces and cutlery in precious metals. Jean-Baptiste Gaspard Odiot, who was received as a maître in 1720 and who married Marie Madeleine Lebesgue, was then joined in business by his son Jean-Claude Odiot (1722-88). After the latter’s first wife died, he then married Marie-Catherine Vavasseur and had three sons, Jean-Baptiste Claude, Jean-Joseph Dieudonné and Germain Gaspard. It was the eldest Jean-Baptiste Claude Odiot - the maker of the present piece, who was to propel the family business to new heights.

Received as a maître orfèvre in Paris 1785, the only known surviving work by J-B C Odiot from before the French Revolution is a very elegant Louis XVI coffee urn which was purchased in 1789 by Thomas Jefferson. The urn (now owned by the Jefferson Foundation at Monticello, Virginia), was especially commissioned by Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and America’s third President, to match one by Jacques Louis-Auguste Leguay and like the present wine cooler is overtly classical in design. During the Revolution, J-B C Odiot distanced himself from Paris and the Terror by serving in the army but then resumed the business maintained by his wife, Jeanne Joséphine née Denève (1769-1849) and in 1802 and again in 1806 was awarded a gold medal at the Exposition de l’Industrie in Paris. Having come to the notice of Napoleon, he was requested to execute an elaborate travelling campaign service for him (c. 1798–1809; illustrated Pinçon & Gaube du Gers, op. cit, p. 77), a large table service for Maximilian I of Bavaria (1798–1809; the Residenzmuseum, Munich) as well as Napoleon’s Coronation sceptre and sword.

Odiot’s rise to fame was cemented following the bankruptcy of the celebrated Neo-classical silversmith Henry Auguste (1759–1816) in 1809. Not only did Odiot purchase many of Auguste’s models and designs but the latter’s downfall paved the way for him and his contemporary Martin-Guillaume Biennais (1764-1843) to replace Auguste as Napoleon’s chief Imperial silversmiths. Soon Odiot was receiving other orders from the French Imperial court, including a service made for Madame Mère, Napoleon’s mother and another for his brother Jérôme King of Westphalia, as well as from all over Europe and beyond. Among important commissions from the Imperial family, in 1810 Odiot supplied a set of dressing-table furniture to the Empress Marie-Louise, the Emperor’s second wife, which was made in collaboration with the celebrated bronzier Pierre-Philippe Thomire (1751-1843) but was destroyed on her order, on the pretext of raising money for hospitals during the cholera epidemic of 1832. Another highly important commission came in 1811; this was the creation of the cradle for the King of Rome, the Emperor and Empress’s long-awaited son (Vienna, Schatzkammer), which was again made in collaboration with Thomire to a design by Pierre-Paul Prud’hon (1758-1823) with models for the figures supplied by the sculptor Henri Victor Roguier (1758-1841).

As here, Jean-Baptiste Claude Odiot’s work, which was characterised by a distinct classical Empire style that took inspiration from antiquity, included symmetrical vase-shaped forms and serpentine handles as well as acanthus and palm leaf motifs. The profiles and surfaces of his pieces were usually left plain and smooth to offset applied decorations, whether an armorial crest, serpentine handles or foliate borders, while on other occasions Odiot included mythological creatures or classical figures within the overall design. It should also be noted that the present armorial mounts as well as the handles and foliate border are fixed to the main body by very fine threaded bolts, secured by nuts that are hidden from view by the inner lining. As noted by Clare Le Corbeiller, in “The Construction of Some Empire Silver” in “Metropolitan Museum Journal”, 1981, vol. 16, 1981, pp. 195-198, this was a technique that Odiot introduced. In contrast, earlier silversmiths as well as Odiot’s contemporary Biennais, attached separate decorative elements to the body of a piece by the means of soldering. Odiot’s innovative means of piercing the main body at the point of attachment and then fixing a decorative element by fine nuts and bolts may well have been inspired by observing similar methods used by the Paris bronziers which he became familiar with when working with P-P Thomire.

Significantly the present wine cooler compares very closely with another acquired by the newly-widowed Countess Branicki in 1819 (illustrated in Pinçon & Gaube du Gers, op. cit, p. 79, pl. 112), which is of the same overall form and apart from its faun-shaped handles and additional mounts around the neck, it displays the exact same foliate decoration on the lower part of the body and also features the same rim and foot. Furthermore, the Branicki family arms are also secured to the main body by fine nuts and bolts. Other comparisons can be made with a set of six designs (numbered 10-15) by Jean-Baptiste Claude Odiot for an elaborate table service (ibid, p. 101, pl. 156), of which n^o. 13, is inscribed below seau à refroidiser. Not only does it exhibit the same vase-shaped form but has a very similar pair of serpentine handles and the same foliate decoration mounted at the base of the main body. Further comparisons can be made with other pieces on the same sheet of paper, including a verrière (n^o. 14), which has the same serpentine handles while the drawing for a coup d’entrées (n^o. 10) and soupière (n^o. 11) feature snake-formed handles to one side and a classical figure to the other (so that the client can decide which they prefer). The designs, which are in the Odiot Collection, date from circa 1800-1806 and while earlier than the present piece, they are typical of J-B C Odiot’s repertoire, for which he gained much fame. Similar serpentine and acanthus-wrapped handles also appear on other of Jean-Baptiste Claude Odiot’s wine coolers including earlier examples dating from 1798 in the Residenzmuseum, Munich, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. Likewise, serpentine handles were employed by him on certain pieces such as a pot à oille (Musée du Louvre, Paris) as part of the renowned Demidoff service made for Count Nikolai Demidoff, 1817-18.

In 2017, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris held an impressive exhibition “Odiot: Un atelier d’Orfèvrerie sous le Premier l’Empire et la Restauration”, in which they displayed about a hundred original designs from J-C-B Odiot’s atelier (acquired by them in 2009) alongside some of the museum’s existing Odiot silver pieces. Among the exhibits were a number of finished items from Odiot’s workshop as well as preparatory designs and drawings featuring the same bifurcated snake-headed handles as here which they suggest may initially have been inspired by Henry Auguste’s models that Odiot acquired after the former’s bankruptcy in 1809. However, and more specifically, the exhibition includes a number of pen and ink drawings which are signed and inscribed and from this the names of Auguste Garneray (1785–1824) and Charles-Jean-Alexandre Moreau (1760/62–1810) stand out. Among them is a design of circa 1810 featuring similar serpentine and foliate handles on a coupe d’entremets (cat. no. 10), which was executed by Auguste Garneray after a model invented by Charles-Jean-Alexandre Moreau. Likewise, a design for a coupe d’entrée ‘anses serpents’ (cat. no. 9), featuring the same handles as here, is attributed to Garneray after a model attributed to Moreau.

Moreau worked as an architect and decorative artist, whose “Ornemens d’Architecture, Dessinés à Rome, d’Apres l’Antique” included many architectural designs and decorative ornaments that were repeated in Odiot’s silverware. Born in Rimancour near Neufchâteau, Vosges, Moreau studied under the Neo-classical painter Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825). He visited Rome on several occasions, exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1797 to 1810 and working as an architect, he renovated the interior of the Théâtre Français, Paris in 1799. Like Moreau, Auguste Garneray also worked as a painter and from 1808 to 1824, exhibited portraits and historical scenes at the Paris Salon, where he won a silver medal in 1812. Garneray was appointed peintre du cabinet to Queen Hortense and subsequently as drawing master to the Duchesse de Berri. In addition to executing the finished designs for Odiot’s more important pieces, Garneray painted landscapes, detailed interior scenes, illustrated books and also designed costumes for the Académie Royale de Musique, the Opéra and the Théâtre-Français in Paris.

Since many of Odiot’s designs were unsigned, it is not known how many were specifically by Garneray, however it is clear that he was responsible for making finished drawings of a number of pieces that featured similar serpentine handles as here. In addition to him, J-B C Odiot made his own designs while other pieces were designed by Adrien-Louis-Marie Cavelier (1785–1867) or were inspired by the architects and ornamentalistes Charles Percier (1764-1838) and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine (1762-1853), who together were instrumental in creating the Empire style for the Emperor Napoleon. In addition, Odiot employed the services of the modellers Antoine-Denis Chaudet (1763-1810), Jacques-Edmé Dumont (1761-1844) and Henri-Victor Roguier.

Following Jean-Baptiste Claude Odiot’s retirement in 1827, his eldest son, Charles-Nicolas Odiot (1789-1868), succeeded him as head of this important firm of Parisian silversmiths. Under Charles-Nicolas’s management Odiot continued to supply royalty and aristocracy such as Baron Salomon von Rothschild with fine pieces for the dinner and tea table. He developed a softer and less austere interpretation of the Empire style, inspired by his earlier experiences in London where he spent time at the famous firm of Garrards. On his return to Paris in circa 1820, Charles-Nicolas introduced a new eclectic and naturalistic Rococo style as well as a collection of powered machinery previously unknown in France. At first he caused consternation among French patrons and collectors who were unaccustomed to the new English style although later its undulating shapes and profusion of ornament was to become highly popular.

In 1819, 1827, 1834, 1844 and again in 1849, Maison Odiot won gold medals in Paris and subsequently was awarded a first-class medal at the Great Exhibition of London in 1851. Further accolades were to follow when in 1853 the firm won a silver medal in New York and likewise in London, 1862 followed by gaining gold medals at the Paris exhibitions of 1867 and 1878. Under Charles-Nicolas’s direction, Odiot produced outstanding cutlery services in a variety of styles – from the Renaissance and Rococo to the elegance of Neo-classicism, which had been a hallmark of his father’s style. On Charles-Nicolas’s death the firm flourished under the management of his son, Jean-Baptiste Gustave, known as Gustave (1823-1912) who executed the largest commission that Maison Odiot had ever received when it supplied a cutlery set of about three thousand pieces to Saïd Pasha, Viceroy of Egypt. Gustave is also credited as receiving the title of Supplier to the Court of His Imperial Majesty the Tsar. That success still flourishes today at Maison Odiot who continue to create some of world’s finest works in silver and gold.

Jean-Baptiste Claude Odiot’s own fame was far reaching and gained increasing favour amongst foreign courts and aristocracy in England, Sweden, Bavaria, Russia, Poland and elsewhere who all looked to Paris as the arbiters of taste and fashion. Among influential Russian clients, J-B C Odiot produced table services for Catherine the Great and Count Nikolai Demidoff while those from Poland included the Countess Poniatowski and Countess Branicki, Count Ostrowsky and Count Dulski, who like Count Stanislaw Kostka Potocki, all ordered grand table services from Odiot in May 1819. The present wine cooler, which features the Potocki coat of arms and bears Paris hallmarks for 1819, would undoubtedly have been one of the numerous pieces that belonged to the Count’s grand service which, as noted in Gay-Mazuel & Ruffet-Troussard, op. cit., p. 15, he bought from Odiot on 14^th May 1819.

Count Stanislaw Kostka Potocki belonged to one of the most prominent noble families in the Kingdom of Poland and magnates of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This historic family whose first known member was Żyrosław z Potoka (b. c. 1136) and originated from the small village of Potok, counted among its members many eminent statesmen, military leaders and cultural activists. Over the years the family branches were divided into three main lines, comprising the Linia Hetmańska or Hetman’s line (Silver Pilawa); the Linia Prymasowa or Primate’s line (Golden Pilawa) as well as the Żelazna Pilawa line (Iron Pilawa). Stanislaw Kostka Potocki belonged to Linia Hetmańska. As we see here, the main body of the wine cooler is mounted on both sides with the Potocki silver Pilawa arms, surmounted by feathers above a crown and a plain cross (denoting silver in heraldry) and include the family motto Scutum Opponebat Scutis meaning shield against shield. Furthermore, the family crest (without the motto) is engraved on the side of the removable silver-gilt ice bucket.

Count Stanislaw Kostka Potocki was a remarkable man of multi talents and diverse interests. He was an outstanding statesman, political leader, a minister of religious beliefs and public education; he also served as prime minister and chairman of the council of State for the Duchy of Warsaw and was a member of the Polish parliament (Sejm) as a representative of the Lubelski region. In addition, he was a leading Freemason, a writer, architect and connoisseur who admired classical art and design. He also became a keen member of Parisian society and was a supporter of Napoleon. Although he was not born into great wealth, through his marriage he eventually built up an impressive art collection that included a number of gilt bronzes by Thomire and Ravrio, porcelain from Pierre-Louis Dagoty and silver from Biennais and Odiot, which he commissioned during his visits to Paris.

Born in Lublin in November 1755, Stanislaw Kostka Potocki inherited his interest in French culture from his parents, Eustachy Potocki and Marianna [Maria] Kątska, née Potocka, who have been described as one of the most enlightened and artistically aware couples of their day. His love of French arts and culture was further nurtured when from 1761-1772 he attended the Collegium Nobilium Scholarum Piarum in Warsaw. The school, established in 1740 by the priest Stanisław Konarski, taught a modern enlightened curriculum that included French and other modern languages and conducted theatrical studies with noticeable French influences. When both his parents died in 1768, Stanislaw Kostka Potocki and his four elder siblings were cared for by their paternal aunt Katarzyna Kossakowska née Potocka, who was known for her brusque and quick repartees.

After leaving school in 1772, Stanislaw Potocki continued his education at the famous military academy in Turin. On his return to Poland in 1775, he married the wealthy Aleksandra Lubomirska (1758 or 1760-1831), whose sister Elżbieta had married Stanisław’s older brother Ignacy Potocki (1750-1809) three years earlier. Through this union, the two brothers shared a mother-in-law - the capricious, prosperous and demanding Elżbieta (Izabela) Lubomirska née Czartoryska. Since she leased the landed estates and ruled over her daughters, initially the two brothers were compelled to seek Elżbieta’s financial assistance and convince her to support their political plans and travels abroad. Stanisław and Aleksandra’s marriage proved a success, with the newlyweds beginning married life at Olesin near Puławy. Stanisław Kostka and Aleksandra Potocki also owned a town residence in Krakowskie Przedmieście (now occupied by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage) and also had other estates in Lubelski, Podolia and Ukraine. In 1797 Aleksandra’s mother decided to give them Wilanów Palace in Warsaw, which they extensively redesigned and where they displayed the majority of their art collection. This was to become Poland’s first museums when they opened it up to the public in 1805.

Supported by his brother Ignacy, Stanisław decided to enter political life, making his debut at the Sejm in 1778. Two years later he, his wife and sister-in-law travelled to Rome where he met Pope Pius VI and established a close relationship with several Italian artists notably the painter and architect Vincenzo Brenna whom he persuaded to work in Poland. From Italy, the whole party went to Switzerland, and after returning home, he was appointed royal podstoli in 1781. Following another visit to Italy during the early 1780s, Potocki planned to abandon politics and settle down in the countryside, but upon his return he once again became involved in public activity, acting as a deputy for the voivodeship of Lublin at the Sejm of 1782 and member of the Permanent Council.

During a later tour of Italy, accompanied his mother-in-law, he conducted archaeological excavations and became known as an expert on Etruscan vases. On his return home he resumed political life but in 1787 he once more set off abroad, staying in Paris in a residence owned by his mother-in-law and enjoying Parisian society and culture. Potocki also spent two months in England and then after returning home via Paris, he recommenced political life, becoming one of the most active members of the patriotic party, which initially was fiercely anti-royal but in time joined in a campaign to reform the country.

Owing to his affiliation with France, in 1807 he and Prince Józef Poniatowski were dispatched, as members of a government commission, to secure financial assistance from Napoleon for the Polish Army. He later supported Napoleon during the latter’s retreat from Russia in 1812 and 1813; following the Napoleonic army’s defeat, Potocki was arrested by the Russians at Leipzig but in 1814 was allowed to return to Wilanów. Back home he was appointed head of the Department of National Education (1815) and then as Minister of the Commission of religious and public education and in so doing, successfully organised an educational system in the Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Poland, and consistently expanded a network of schools at all levels to provide elementary education for children of both sexes and all creeds. The Potocki era also witnessed the opening of Warsaw University, the establishment of numerous vocational schools, an institute for the deaf and dumb and 1200 elementary schools in addition to the opening of many museums, libraries and an observatory.

Potocki spent the last years of his celebrated life in Wilanów, where he died on 14^th September 1821 and was buried. A mausoleum was also built there and in 1822 friends planted a grove in nearby Gucci commemorating him and his brother Ignacy. Stanislaw left behind him his wife Aleksandra, his son Aleksander Stanisław (1776-1845) as well as the great legacy of Poland’s first museum at Wilanów, set up by him and Aleksandra in 1805. The collection included paintings of exceptional quality including an equestrian portrait of Potocki by Jacques-Louis David as well as works by Lucas Cranach, Peter Paul Rubens, Pompeo Batoni and Angelika Kaufmann in addition to an array of decorative arts including silver by Biennais and Odiot. Among existing works by Odiot at Wilanów is a silver-gilt tea and coffee set, which was purchased in 1819 by the Countess Branicki. The tea and coffee set were part of a much larger dinner service which was exhibited by Odiot at the Paris Exposition des Produits de l’Industrie Français. Following the Countess’s death in 1838, the magnificent dinner service remained at her residence in Biała Cerkiew until it was transferred to Wilanów, probably when her family inherited the palace in 1892. The tea and coffee set remain at Wilanów, but the majority of other pieces were sold by the Russian government during the late 1920s. More recently a silver-gilt surtout de table with winged chimeras, which originally belonged to the Branicki service, was acquired for Wilanów, while other existing pieces by J-B C Odiot include an oval silver platter and vegetable dish that both bear the Potocki Pilawa coat of arms as well as a silver coffee pot, a tureen, bowl and decanter stand.

Interestingly Stanislaw Kostka Potocki’s cousin Jan Potocki (1761–1815) also acquired a number of pieces from J-B C Odiot when visiting Paris (noted in Pinçon & Gaube du Gers, op. cit., p. 191). Like Stanislaw, Jan Potocki was a polymath, whose many interests included the arts. He was an army captain, a great traveller and adventurer; he was also known as an expert Egyptologist, a linguist and was a popular author of the Enlightenment period, whose most celebrated work is “Manuscrit Trouvé à Saragosse” (completed in 1814). Jan Potocki was also prone to depression and in 1815 took his own life when he shot himself with a silver bullet, believed to have been derived from part of the lid adorning a silver teapot that he had bought in Paris.

In addition to those museums already mentioned above, examples from Jean-Baptiste Claude Odiot’s outstanding oeuvre can be found elsewhere in Poland at the national museums of Warsaw and Poznan. Other works by him are housed at the Metropolitan Museum and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York, the Detroit Institute of Art (who also own a portrait of him by Robert Jacques François Lefèvre), the Museums of Fine Arts in Boston, Cleveland and Montreal. Elsewhere one can find his work in the British Royal Collection, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Manchester Art Gallery and the National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh. J-B C Odiot’s work is also represented in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg and in Moscow at the Kremlin Museums as well as the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Palacio Ajuda in Lisbon, the Museo Nacional des Artes Decorativas in Madrid, the Museo Correr in Venice, the Kunsthistoisches Museum in Vienna and in the Spanish, Belgian and Swedish royal collections.