PAIR OF SILVER OILER BASINS FROM THE ROYAL PENTHIÈVRE-ORLÉANS SERVICE By Edme-Pierre Balzac Paris, 1762-1763 Oval shaped with contours, standing on four feet with foliate scrolls; the decoration with rocaille and shells; the flask holders, decorated with olive branches, the supports screwed to the top. In the centre, the socket is formed by two intertwined dolphins chased with scales au naturel, heads downwards, the waterfall pouring into a shell, the screw fastenings. On two sides, the coat of arms, executed later by the Odiots, is applied and screwed to a cartouche bearing the arms of Louis-Philippe Duc d'Orléans (1773-1850), the future Louis-Philippe 1st King of the French. The coat of arms of Louis-Philippe: Azure, three fleurs-de-lis Or with a label Argent, surmounted by the crown of a prince of the blood with the collars of the King's orders. The hallmarks - On the basins: Master goldsmith, Edme-Pierre Balzac (crowned fleur-de-lis, two seeds, letters EP/B and a cinquefoil); Jurande, crowned letter Y, for July 1762 - July 1763; Charge, two interlaced laurel branches, for gold and small silver items, 1762-1768; Discharge, a head of hounds, for gold and small silver items, 1762-1768. On the flask holders: Discharge, a braque head, for gold and small silver items, 1762-1768; Control, a weevil, for silver imported from contracting countries since 1864. On one of the dolphin grips: Control, a weevil, for silver imported from contracting countries since 1864 The bottles and stoppers are missing; accident and restorations H.11.5 cm (4 ½ in.) l.32.5 cm (12 ¾ in.) L. : 18 cm (7 in.) Gross weight : 2 Kg 226 and 2 Kg 175 Origin : Probably Henry Janssen (1701-1766) ; Louis-Charles de Bourbon, Count of Eu between about 1760 and 1775; His cousin, Louis-Jean-Marie de Bourbon, Duc de Penthièvre (1725-1793); His daughter, Louise-Marie-Adélaïde de Bourbon Penthièvre (1753-1821), wife of Philippe-Egalité, Duc d'Orléans. (1747-1793) ; The service was confiscated during the Revolution, returned to the Duchess of Orléans in 1797, then reconfiscated and definitively returned to the Orléans family in 1814; By succession to Louis-Philippe d'Orléans, King of the French in 1830; By descent to Emmanuel d'Orléans, Duke of Vendôme (1872-1931); His widow Henriette, Duchess of Vendôme (1870-1948) and her heirs ; And subsequently, a French private collection. Bibliography : M. Bimbenet-Privat, et al. Le Service Penthièvre-Orléans. Orfèvrerie de la Renaissance et des temps modernes, XVIe, XVIIe, XVIIIe siècles / La Collection du Musée du Louvre, Faton, 2022, vol. 2, p. 9-15. G. Mabille, L'orfèvrerie Française des XVIe, XVIIe, XVIIIe siècles, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Flammarion, 1989. G. Mabille, Le Service Penthièvre-Orléans, cat. exp. Versailles et les Tables Royales en Europe / XVIIème - XIXème siècles, 3 November 1993 - 27 February 1994, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, p. 275. Sales catalogues: Sotheby's, Royal French Silver / The Property of George Ortiz - New York, 1996. Sotheby's, Robert de Balkany - Paris, 2016. A pair of silver oil cruet frames, from the royal Penthievre-Orleans service, by Edme-Pierre Balzac, Paris, 1762-1763 Edme-Pierre Balzac : Privileged goldsmith according to the Court; received master goldsmith in 1739, he had two hallmarks inscribed, one for gold, the second for silver; ten years later he ceded his privilege to his brother Jean-François. In 1743, he lived on the Pont-au-Change and from 1749 on the rue Saint-Barthélemy. In 1753, he ran into difficulties and had to file for bankruptcy. Some of his creations are decorated with remarkable animal subjects and highly masterful rocaille decorations. In 1766, he was probably the creator of a machine for printing filet cutlery. He was still living in the provinces in 1781. His pieces are represented in the Penthièvre-Orléans service, and the world's greatest museums have acquired his works, such as the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Hermitage Museum, and they appear in prestigious private collections, such as David-Weill and Puiforcat. Edme-Pierre Balzac's pieces from the Penthièvre-Orléans service: - Pair of terrines, 1757-1759 (one with the tray missing), Metropolitan Museum of Arts (see Fig. 1); the second, (the tray, 1763-1764), Musée du Louvre, (Sotheby's 20 June 1992, lot 23) - Pair of coolers (cf. Fig. 2), 1757-1760, private collection (Sotheby's Monaco, 24 June 1976, lot 51) - Pair of bottle buckets (cfr. Fig. 3), 1759-1760, (the linings by Charles-Nicolas Odiot, 1819-1823) - Two pairs of oille pots, 1758-1759, one in the Musée du Louvre (see Fig. 4), the second in a private collection - Four oil basins: two, 1760-1761, (one (cfr. Fig. 5) published in, Bimbenet-Privat, et al. Orfèvrerie de la Renaissance et des Temps Modernes / XVIe, XVIIe, XVIIIe siècles / La Collection du Musée du Louvre édition Faton, vol.2 - p.69, private collection; (the second (cfr. Fig. 6) without the flask-holders, published in the Sotheby's New York catalogue, Royal French Silver, the property of George Ortiz, 13 November 1996, p.57, Fig.12, private collection); Reference for one, shown as the Santa Marina collection, Buenos Aires, 1968: El arte de vivir en Francia del siglo XVIII en las colecciones argentinas, Buenos Aires, Museo Nacional de Arte, Decorativo, 1968. n°306 And the pair we are presenting, 1762-1763, private collection. The Penthièvre-Orléans service: The Penthièvre-Orléans service bears witness to the opulence and splendour of Court silversmithing in the mid-eighteenth century, and to the unrivalled talent and virtuosity of the great silversmiths, Thomas Germain, Claude Ballin II, Edme-Pierre Balzac, Antoine Sébastien-Durant and Robert-Joseph Auguste. Its shapes and decorations express the full richness of rocaille art, which reached its full flowering; its vocabulary combines natural motifs, plants, flowers, rocaille with curved contours, birds, fish and game, all of which have a cultural resonance as they were taken up by the great animal painters. Through the ups and downs of the revolutionary seizures, the Penthièvre-Orléans service is the only coherent collection that has survived to the present day. Today, its rare and exceptional pieces are shared between the greatest museums and a number of prestigious private collections. There is still some uncertainty surrounding the service's first patron and recipient, Henry Janssen (1701-1766), a wealthy Englishman of Dutch origin who settled in Paris and whose name has been put forward in particular because of the identification of his coat of arms engraved on the reverse of the bell (cover plate) of the Penthièvre-Orléans service, by Sébastien Durant, Paris, 1750-1752, from the former Robert de Balkany collection (see Sotheby's Paris sale, 20 September 2016, lot 97). The service subsequently belonged to the grandsons of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, Louis-Charles de Bourbon, Comte d'Eu (1701-1775) and his cousin and heir Louis-Jean-Marie de Bourbon, Duc de Penthièvre. This prince was the only son of the Comte de Toulouse and his wife Marie-Victoire de Noailles, and the young Duc de Penthièvre, born in 1725 at the Château de Rambouillet, was appointed Admiral of France in 1734. On his father's death in 1737, he succeeded him in his civil and military duties; he distinguished himself in particular at Fontenoy (1745) during the War of the Austrian Succession. When they died, he took over the immense estates of his cousins, the Prince of Dombes and the Count of Eu; his income, which reached six million pounds a year, made him one of the richest men in Europe. His duchies, Rambouillet, Aumale and his residences, Anet, Sceaux and, in Paris, the Hôtel de Toulouse, are countless. He was Governor of Brittany, Grand Veneur of France, an important position in the King's household, and hunted with his godfather Louis XV. A great collector, he displayed works by Alexandre-François Desportes and Jean-Baptiste Oudry in his homes, some of which were inspired by goldsmiths' motifs. Popular and renowned for his kindness and generosity, the Duke of Penthièvre looked after many destitute people and built hospitals, including Saint-Jacques des Andelys in 1781. His qualities enabled him to live out his remaining years in 1793 at the Château de Bizy in the Eure department, without being troubled during the Revolution. On his death, the service passed to the only surviving daughter of his children, Louise-Marie-Adélaïde de Bourbon (1753-1821), married in 1769 to Louis-Philippe-Joseph d'Orléans (1747-1793), Duke of Orléans in 1785, the famous "Philippe Égalité". As early as 1793, the Duchess of Orléans, who had not emigrated, was arrested, and confiscations and seizures of goldsmiths' and silversmiths' wares destined for casting followed one another in her homes, although some pieces were spared. Under the Directoire, the heiress of the Duc de Penthièvre regained some of her possessions, and in this particular case, a quarter of the original silverware. Political uncertainties led to further confiscations, and it was not until 1814 that the remaining pieces of silverware were returned to her. On the death of the Duchess of Orléans in 1821, her son Louis-Philippe, the future King of France in 1830, inherited the estate. Notes - Description of the oil mills at the time of the Revolution, according to the archives of the House of France in 1794 and 1797 - Description of the crockery of the late Duke of Penthièvre at the Hôtel de Toulouse 9 Floréal Year II (28 April 1794) No. 30 A case: two oil holders representing a peach with their corks N° 31 A case: two oyster stands and their stoppers representing the same peach - Weighing at the Mint of the crockery of the Hôtel de Toulouse On 12 Floréal, Year II, all the items were brought to the Monnaie (1st May 1794) N° 34 : 86 marcs 3 onces 6 gros : total weight for two saltcellars representing rocailles and having a child in the middle, four oil stands with ornaments and four sauceboats. - Condition and weight of the "Grand Service 23rd July 1797 Which is a proposal for restitution to the widow of Orléans Four oil dispensers decorated with dolphins with decanter stoppers Mark: 38/7/2.5