17th Pair Of Medici Vases In Carrara Marble

Pair of Medici vases in white Carrara marble, 17th-century Italian craftsmanship.
The Medici vase is a monumental marble krater, carved in Athens by a Neo-Attic workshop around the middle of the 1st century B.C. as a garden ornament. It was part of the collection of antiquities at Villa Medici in Rome, where it appears in the inventories beginning in 1598, but its origin is unknown. In 1780, it was moved to the Uffizi Gallery, where it is still on display today. The vase was widely admired and began to be reproduced in copies made of various materials between the 17th and 18th centuries to adorn the gardens of important residences, not only in Italy.
This pair of vases comes from a prominent historic residence near Carrara, in Tuscany. They are crafted in the typical pod-shaped style popular in the 17th century. They were made entirely by hand, by carving a block of marble into the desired shape. While the outer walls were finished by smoothing them with special powders, the interior of the vases still shows the chisel marks from the carving process. As was always the case, the vases adorned the lemon house in a park; they therefore bear signs of wear typical of exposure to the elements, but their charm and value stem precisely from this beautiful original patina.

Dimensions
Height: 40 cm
Mouth: 32 cm
Base: 20 x 20 cm

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