Ghent 1767-1798, Three Salt Cellars With Their Original Interiors, Petrus Josephus Dupret

Very elegant set of three Louis XVI salt cellars in solid silver with the master's mark of the famous Ghent goldsmith Petrus Josephus Dupret. A great artistic talent and talented craftsman, this man of Athois birth became a bourgeois of the city of Ghent in 1762. He became a master in the goldsmiths' corporation there in 1767. His mark was destroyed in 1798. In the absence of other marks on the three pretty salt cellars, we cannot date them more precisely than 1767-1798. What makes them exceptional and rare are their original interiors in cut and gilded blue glass. Two interiors have a slight shine, one is perfectly intact. The Bijloke Museum in Ghent has a magnificent drawing of a Louis XV coffee pot by the hand of this goldsmith. The empty mounts weigh 150 grams.