Paris 1780, Sauceboat On Tray, Solid Silver, Pierre Vallières, Jean-c.roquillet-desnoyers

A lovely Louis XVI period sauceboat in solid silver with an oval-shaped spout, the fluted pedestal chiseled with crosspieces. The handle with acanthus leaf stems framing a pearl medallion left free of engraving. The body is delicately engraved with neoclassical motifs on matte backgrounds framing a leaf of the same. Master silversmith: Pierre VALLIERES, received in 1776. Hallmarks of Paris for the year 1780. Weight: 398 g The sauce boat is screwed onto a Louis XVI style tray from the same year (1780), but by another Parisian goldsmith, Jean-Charles Roquillet-Desnoyers. This polylobed oval sugar bowl tray, molded with fillets and stapled with foliage, chiseled on the rim with floral interlacing, weighs 298 g. The weld points inside the foot and on the tray suggest eighteenth-century work. The fact that the hallmarks for the tax collectors are struck on the inside edge of the foot instead of the middle of the bottom also points towards a mounting designed from the outset rather than later.