PAIR OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY CAST IRON BORGHESE
GARDEN URNS


Dimensions: 77 cm. high; 69 cm. diameter (2)

The Borghese Vase is a monumental bell-shaped krater or large vase sculpted in Athens from Pentelic marble in the second-half of the 1st century BCE. It was made as a garden ornament for export to the Roman market and depicts the thiasus, the ecstatic retinue of Dionysus, the Greek god of winemaking and wine. The procession depicted on the frieze is composed of a group of inebriated revellers.

The Borghese Vase was rediscovered in Rome in 1566 and was acquired by the Borghese family, a powerful noble Italian family with papal connections, and were originally from Sienna. Napoleon purchased the vase in 1808 and it has been part of the collection held at the Musée du Louvre, Paris, since 1811.

Handyside Foundry, an important English ironworks, was renowned for its fountains and garden ornaments. It was founded in 1848 and the quality of its castings was exceptional. It produced copies of the Medici urns, and busts that included those of Shakespeare, Milton, and Wellington. The foundry’s first catalogue of ornamental ironwork was first published in 1873.