Crystal Staircase - Large Crystal Cone-shaped Vase Decorated With Vine Tendrils.

Large, leaf-green crystal cone-shaped vase with a rotating, engraved, and gilded vine motif. It bears the original label of the Escalier de Cristal shop in the Palais Royal, run by Boin and Lahoche around 1840-50. Height: 66 cm, base diameter: 22 cm. Around 1808, Marie Jeanne Rosalie Désarnaud opened her shop in the galleries of the Palais-Royal garden. Having become wealthy, Marie Désarnaud sold her business in 1829 to Jacques Boin, a cutter and engraver also working in the Palais-Royal. Boin maintained the prestige associated with the shop due to its royal and princely clientele. In 1840, Boin partnered with another merchant, Pierre-Isidore Lahoche. This new partnership coincided with the development of Russian-style service in French dining, which required new serving pieces. He managed to embody, for an elegant clientele, what could be called "good taste" in the late 1840s and early 1850s.