A red and gold lacquer potpourri vase with gilt bronze mounting and openwork decoration of rocailles, foliage and flowers, the lid surmounted by a coral branch; (small missing parts and restoration to the lacquer). The bronzes are marked with a crowned c (1745-1749). Louis XV period. H. 21 cm, L. 22 cm A pair of black-ground Chinese lacquer vases from the collections of Mesdames at the Château de Bellevue are now in the Louvre, with similar mounts, also dated between 1745 and 1749, and featuring the same shell and coral trophy motif on the socket as on several vases probably made in the same workshop. These include a pair of blue porcelain vases with crowned c in the Frick Collection, New York, a pair of Meissen white porcelain vases from the Château de Groussay sale (Sotheby's, June 2, 1999, lot 330), and a pair of vases in the Wrightsman collection at the Metropolitan Museum, New York. In terms of early descriptions, it is interesting to compare this series with lot 41 from the Gaillard de Gagny sale on March 29, 1762: "Two vases with lids, old Turkish blue (...) the top of the lids is enriched with an ornamental platform with coral and a kind of triton conch: the whole in bronze, gilded with ground gold (...). "