Sauce Boat Louis XV, Mechelen 1752, Jean Lucas Fayd'herbe

Extremely rare sauce boat from the Louis XV period with the hallmark of the city of Malines (Mechelen) seat of the archdiocese whose holder has been the primate of the southern Netherlands since its foundation. It bears the hallmark for the 1752 vintage and the master goldsmith hallmark of Jean Lucas Fayd'herbe, descendant of a famous line of baroque sculptors and architects from Mechelen, the best known of whom, Lucas Fayd'herbe was not only a pupil of Rubens but also a good friend'who sculpted the pieta for the funeral chapel of the Rubens. It is still entirely designed in the Regence style and is rather solid. The body is in hammered silver while the handles and the moldedp foot are in cast and chiseled silver. As often in the Belgian provinces under the old regime, the silver scratch or striche is still visible on the bottom of the object.