Tazza (Footed Bowl)

Place of OriginFrance

Datelate 18th century

DimensionsH: 9 ¼ in. (23.5 cm); bowl, diam.: 7 in. (18 cm)

Mediumopacified opaline lead glass, mold-blown, cut and polished with gilded bronze mount

ClassificationGlass

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

2007.48

On View

Toledo Museum of Art Glass Pavilion (2444 Monroe Street), Glass Pavilion Gallery, 4

DescriptionThe circular gadrooned dish flanked by four spirally-fluted scroll handles, on foliate-cast supports terminating in hoof feet, above a quadripartite base centered by a rosette and with mille-raie paneled edge, on foliate-cast toupie feet.

Label TextThis elegant and jewel-like tazza in the ornate Louis XVI style may have been used on a sideboard or dressing table to hold potpourri. It is a superb example of the most precious late 18th-century objets de luxe (luxury objects) favored by French connoisseurs. The rose opaline glass of the bowl is an unusual and expensive color made by adding colloidal gold to the glass batch.Published ReferencesSale, Important European Sculpture, Furniture and Carpets, Christie's, London, July 5, 2007, p. 162, lot 115.

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 217, repr. (col.).

Comparative ReferencesSee also A. Sassoon and G. Wilson, Decorative Arts, A Handbook of the Collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, CA: The Museum, 1986, p. 96, fig. 207.