Mons, 1791, Pair Of Salt Cellars In Solid Silver And Blue Glass, Louis XVI Period

Pair of solid silver salt cellars

Mons, 1791 — Louis XVI period

An elegant pair of oval-shaped solid silver salt cellars, each resting on four tapered legs topped with small spherical knobs. The vertical sides, accented with subtle moldings, support an ornate band on an amati background featuring suspended laurel garlands punctuated by rosettes, in the purest neoclassical style of the late Louis XVI period.

The main faces are embellished with an openwork design depicting a trophy of musical instruments, consisting of a trumpet and a flute (or a related wind instrument), held together by an elegant ribbon bow and framed by cascading foliage. This motif, inspired by the decorative repertoire of antiquity, exemplifies the refinement characteristic of the decorative arts of the 1780s and 1790s.

Both salt cellars have retained their removable cobalt-blue glass liners, whose intense color creates a particularly harmonious contrast with the luster of the silver.

The four regulatory hallmarks of the city of Mons are stamped into the small knobs at the ends of each of the four legs, for a total of eight hallmarked locations on the pair. These include the city hallmark featuring a tower, the crowned letters “AE,” the date “91” corresponding to the year 1791, and a master’s mark that is now difficult to read, whose initials appear to begin with “C” or “G.” Despite its state of wear, this hallmark narrows down the possible attribution to a very limited number of master goldsmiths active in Mons at that time.

This pair is a remarkable example of Mons goldsmithing from the end of the Ancien Régime.
The decorative motifs used are extremely rare, as I have not found any other pair of salt cellars from the Southern Netherlands featuring this particular design. Yet goldsmiths from different cities tended to copy one another’s work.
The quality of the casting and chasing, the balance of the proportions, the preservation of the original glass liners, and the presence of complete regulatory hallmarks make this a particularly attractive and unusual set.