Oval medallion with relief profile portrait of Francesco Scipione (1675-1755), , the Italian writer, art critic, and antiquarian, who published many important early works on Etruscan art

Francesco Scipione

Wedgwood

About 1790

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Garland of Corn, Germany, cast iron
Oval medallion with profile portrait of Jean-Francois Marmontel (1723-1799), French writer and dramatist, born in the Limousin region (noe Haute Vienne). Educated at the Jesuit college at Mauriac. Marmontel became a teacher of philosophy at the Bernardine seminary at Toulouse. He attracted the notice of Voltaire, who advised him to go to Paris where he arrived in 1745. A tragedy produced in 1747 at once gave him celebrity. An introduction to Madame de Pompadour brought him the place of secretary to her brother, the Marquis de Marigny. Marmontel frequented the salon of Madame Geoffrin, and after the death of his friend, Boissy, he was given the Mercure de France. After a great deal of opposition Marmontel was elected to the Academy in 1763, and in 1783 was appointed Secretary and historiographer of France. He retired to Normandy at the outbreak of the revolution, dying there in 1799. This model comes from an unsigned engraving dated 1765
Small Staffordshire salt-glazed culinary, or dessert, mold in the shape of a star.
Small urn-shaped, two-handled vase of solid white jasper with black jasper dip mounted on a round drum-shaped pedestal, engine-turned in a checkerboard pattern of black and white with yellow relief decoration in the form of quatrefoils in the middle of the white squares, and white relief decoration in the form of scrolling leaves and leafy elements, the vase rests on a plain white square plinth and has a round foot enhanced with a leafy border and overlapping acanthus leaves on the vase's stem, both likewise in white relief, the lower body of the vase with an acanthus leaf and star pattern, the upper body decorated in the same "diced" pattern as the pedestal with a band of leafy vines directly below the lip in white relief, the lip with a border of white stylized floral motifs, the two white jasper handles terminate in rams' heads.