One of the highest prices of 2019 achieved by French auction house Beaussant Lefèvre (27% buyer’s premium inc VAT) was the €310,000 (£262,710) paid for this impressively tall 4ft 1in (1.25m) high pair of gilt bronze mounted, footed and covered vases.

Extracted from Antiques Trade Gazette | Anne Crane

They date from the Napoleon III era and are painted with classical scenes of Orthryia carried off by Borée (after the painting by François André Vincent now in the fine Art Museum in Tours) and Time saving truth from Lies and Envy, after François Lemoyne’s work in the Wallace collection.

To the reverse are woodland landscapes. The highly detailed gilt mounts feature masks and laurel branches and to the base decoration of lambrequins, ribbons, laurel and porcelain plaques.

Three medallions on the vases are signed A Schilt Sèvres and a fourth A Schilt Sèvres 84. The painter François Philippe Abel Schilt worked at Sèvres from 1847-80.

The sale took place on December 6.