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Enameller: Lepec, Charles-Florent-Joseph
Copper, polchrome enamels, platinum, and gilding, with a cast cherub finial on the cover: decorated with stylized plant motifs and scrolling foliage, a dragon crest, a winged, crowned, and veiled three-quarter-length female nude terminating in foliage, and a Cupid riding a dragon
Copper decorated in blue, green, dark red, shades of purple, black and white enamels, and with platinum, and profusely and thickly gilded. The tazza has a shallow domed foot, a very slender trumpet-shaped stem with a slightly domed circular knop near the base, and a wide shallow bowl with a small filigree boss in the centre. The elements of the tazza are held together by an iron rod with a gilt nut at the bottom, which is within a circular depression in the centre of the gilt-metal plate which closes the base.The shallow, domed cover has a central filigree ring enclosing the green base on which the cast gilt cherub finial stands.
The bowl of the tazza is decorated internally with a central black disk on which is a dark red circle, a wide zone with a gold ground decorated in black and shades of purple with a circular branching stem of delicate stylized foliage, buds, and flowers; a narrow black band with projecting groups of three pointed leaves form spandrels between eleven semi-circular motifs comprising a silver and black arch enclosing a half-flower, with blue and white rhomboidal petals with gold between their tips. On one side, the border is broken by the mark 'CHARLES LEPEC/-PARIS-/N 288.I.P.V.66' in gold below a coronet, and a dragon crest. The exterior is decorated en suite, but the border is broken by a stylized plant with acanthus-type leaves. The foot is decorated with the border, broken by a dragon crest.
The exterior of the cover is decorated en suite, but the border is broken at the front by a winged, crowned, and veiled three-quarter-length female nude terminating in foliage. She holds a laurel wreath in her right hand, and a palm branch in her left. The putto is orientated so that he aims his arrow over her. The interior of the cover is decorated en suite, but has a central gold disk decorated with Cupid riding a dragon. surrounded by a circular spray of foliage, and a border of alternately green and red triangles. The border is broken by the mark, 'CHARLES LEPEC/-PARIS-/N 287.I.P.V.1866' in bold below a crown and a crowned black swan or eagle crest.
History note: Alfred Morrison (1821-1897); sold by his widow, Mabel (1847-1933) at Christie, Manson & Woods, 25-7 January 1899, Objects of Oriental and European Art, first part of lot 390; sold to Marcus. Christie's, South Kensington, 20 September 1994, lot 70; H. Blairman & Sons, 119 Mount Street, London.
Purchased with the F. Leverton-Harris Fund
Height: 23.8 cm
Method of acquisition: Bought (1994-11-21) by H. Blairman & Sons
19th Century, third quarter
Production date:
dated
AD 1866
Charles Lepec (1830-90), is said to have been a pupil of the painter, Jean Hippolyte Flandrin (1809–64), and exhibited paintings in oils at the Paris Salon in 1857 and 1859. By then he was experimenting with enamelling on metals, and his earliest recorded example is a small plate, dated 1860 and numbered '34'. A year later Lepec exhibited two enamels at the Salon, and, with the exception of 1862 and 1868, continued to exhibit enamels on gold or copper there until 1869. The year 1862 was crucial for Lepec’s career. His participation in the London International Exhibition, brought him into contact with the silversmith, Robert Phillips, probably through whom he obtained the patronage of Alfred Morrison (1821–1897) of Fonthill in Wiltshire, a fabulously wealthy businessman, landowner and collector, who became his most important English patron. During the next seven years Lepec created a stream of portrait miniatures, plates, standing cups, caskets, ornamental vases and flasks for Morrison and other patrons, and his exhibited enamels were acclaimed by French and English art critics for the originality of their design, and the brilliance of their execution. This standing cup (tazza or coupe), was made for Morrison in 1866. The Cupid on the cover suggests that it might have been a token of love, because it was in April of 1866 that he married Mabel Chermside (1847-1933), the eighteen-year old daughter of the Rector of Wilton. In early December of the same year, Lepec completed a portrait miniature of the bride, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York ( 2018.74). A preparatory design for a 'coupe' in the Victoria and Albert Museum (D.410-1891), titled 'Dessous '( below /under) and signed and dated 'CH.LEPEC 65' partly resembles a section of the decoration on the underside of the cover of this cup, but lacks the central Cupid riding a dragon, and has instead a black disk, like the inside of the bowl. Many firings would have been necessary to complete the intricate enamelling and gilding of the cup and its cover, and the project could have taken more than six months to complete, particularly as Lepec was working on several other projects during 1865 and 1866. Despite lack of explicit evidence, the gilt mounts for the tazza, and the cast Cupid may have been made by the goldsmith and enameller, Charles Duron (1814-72) who sometimes collaborated with Lepec, and made a greatly admired gold and silver nef enamelled by Lepec which was displayed on his stand at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1867.
Renaissance Revival
Second Empire (1852-70)
Decoration
composed of
enamel
( blue, green, dark red, shades of purple, black and white)
gold
Dover
Diameter 14.5 cm
Rim
Diameter 15 cm
Foot
Diameter 8 cm
Raising (metal forming process) : Copper, painted in blue, green, dark red, shades of purple, black and white enamels, and gold
Accession number: M.5 & A-1994
Primary reference Number: 156465
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
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The Fitzwilliam Museum (2025) "Standing cup and cover" Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/156465 Accessed: 2025-03-24 00:55:08
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{{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/156465
|title=Standing cup and cover
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2025-03-24 00:55:08|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
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