Pair of Empire period tabletop glasses, ca. 1800

Pair of tabletop cups Empire period, ca. 1800.
Gilded and patinated bronze.
Measurements: 38 cm.

This pair of goblets is representative of the refined artistic taste of the transition between the Consulate (1799-1804) and the first years of the Napoleonic Empire (1804-1815). In this period, French decorative art is characterized by its neoclassical inspiration and by the adoption of symbolic and exotic themes, especially those related to Antiquity and Pharaonic Egypt, following the famous Napoleonic campaign in Egypt (1798-1801). Both pieces are raised on four claw feet that support a base of living artists embellished with double dolphins and tridents, a motif rooted in Renaissance aesthetics. The cups themselves have oval vessels embellished with scrolls and foliate motifs. The handles on the sides emerge from pharaonic masks.