Pair of Vases

The sumptuous blue-and-gold surface of these ornamental vases exemplifies the 18th-century taste for gilded decoration and exuberant color. Rimmed in gold, the top openings resemble precious shells while the handles seem to have been formed by encasing myrtle leaves in gold. The vases carry narrative scenes based on compositions by the French painter Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805). Greuze’s "Blind Man Fooled" (1755) in the collection of the Pushkin Museum, shows a young woman fooling her blind husband as she attempts to sneak her lover out of the basement and away before her spouse discovers her ruse. The scene on the vase at right, "Mommy (La Maman)," depicts a mother trying to feed her younger son while the older one grabs at the spoon intended for his brother.