Bronze Age Gold from Wales

Half-size bottle cooler ('seau à demi-bouteille'), soft-paste porcelain, cylindrical, spreading foot ring with moulded step on the outside curving into the vertical sides, the rim slightly proud of the side and moulded with a thick ridge, two moulded handles of shell form flanked by acanthus-leaf scrolls; enamelled green ('vert') ground with large white reserves to front and rear, each painted with a large bouquet of fruit and flowers (pomegranate, grapes, apples, rosehips, flowers; grapes, a rose, other flowers) in natural colours, each framed with burnished and tooled gilding in the form of palm fronds, flowers and leaves, gilded edging to the handles with gilded leaves around each terminal, gilded bands round foot and rim. A small hole drilled on the inside of the foot ring.

This object was used for chilling half-sized bottles of wine. It might have originally been part of a service acquired in 1771 by Simon Poirier, a marchand-mercier (a seller and maker of fashionable objects for the home).