Getty Museum

Pair of lidded vases

Date

about 1700

Medium

Green granite

Culture

French

Department

Decorative Arts

Institution

Getty Museum

Hardstone vases such as these were highly sought after by the French king Louis XIV and his court. The vases were probably made at the Gobelins manufactory, established on the outskirts of Paris to provide furnishings for the French royalty. Expertise in hardstone carving had come to France from Italian craftsman recruited from the manufactory of the grand duke of Florence, the Galleria de'Lavorie. Meant purely for decorative display, these vases would have been valued for their smooth carving and overall opulence, which emphasized their owner's power and wealth. Realizing the importance of lavish display, Louis XIV practiced it and wrote about it in a book, *Instructions destinées au Dauphin* (Instructions for the King's Son): *The people like a spectacle... sometimes we keep a tighter hold upon their spirits and their hearts in this way than through rewards and kindnesses, while as for foreigners... that which is wasted on these expenditures, which might appear superfluous, makes upon them a very advantageous impression of magnificence, of power, of riches, and of grandeur.*

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