Bronze Garden Vase with Portrait Medallions and Hybrid Lion-shaped Handles, possibly related to the Gardens of Versailles

Claude Ballin the Elder

1673 or after · Pen and ink with gray wash over ruled lines in graphite · Drawings and Prints

Design for a large garden vase in the shape of an urn, executed in bronze for the gardens of Versailles after designs by Claude Ballin in about 1665. Five vases were reproduced in etchings by Jean Le Pautre in the following decade, with individual prints dated 1672 and 1673. Through the prints, Ballin's garden vases became popular throughout Europe and are known in numerous seventeenth- and eighteenth-century copies. This drawing was acquired with two others by the same hand. Two follow the known vases from Versailles, but this sheet shows an additional design that is not represented by the prints, and may or may not have been executed.

Artist

Claude Ballin the Elder

Date

1673 or after

Medium

Pen and ink with gray wash over ruled lines in graphite

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Edward Pearce Casey Fund, 2014