Hexagonal salt cellar with double portrait decoration - Lot 48

Hexagonal salt cellar with double portrait decoration Limoges, circa 1540 1550 Enamel painted on copper in grisaille, highlighted with blue, turquoise and gold on a dark red-brown ground. Provenance : Drouot sale, Tessier Sarrou, June 17, 2022, lot 69. H. 6.5 cm; W. 8.4 cm. Hexagonal salt cellar decorated on each side with double portraits in bust and profile, inscribed in a white and blue oval frame with the name of the main character inscribed in black: three sides VENVS, two PARIS and one NEROM (Nero). The upper saleron features a bust of Venus, while the lower features Pâris. They are bordered by a garland of turquoise leaves enhanced with white and blue flowers. Condition: Slight restorations to the edges of the salerons, notably to the white fillet. Wear on the names inscribed in gold in the salerons. Hexagonal saltcellars were very popular in Limousin painted enamel production between 1540 and 1560. In addition to examples illustrating the works and life of Hercules, those featuring profile busts (single or double, polychrome or grisaille) are among the most numerous. Several of them, showing similarities both in the choice of bust models and in their stylistic treatment, suggest the production of the same workshop, probably close to that of Colin Nouailher, to whom these salt cellars are often attributed, as is the case for the pair preserved at the Musée Antoine-Vivenel in Compiègne. An identical salt cellar, most probably the one that originally formed a pair with our example, was offered for sale at Sotheby's in London on July 6, 1989 (lot 220), and again at the auction of Dr Alex Brunet's collection in Angers on September 26, 2023, by Chauvire et Courant (lot 128). There is also an identical pair in the Lázaro Galdiano Museum in Madrid (inv. 1374 and 1375).