An absolute masterpiece of French decorative art enters the Musée d’Orsay

2/2/24 - Acquisition - Paris, Musée d’Orssay - We admired it at Sotheby’s New York and hoped that the Musée d’Orsay would be able to acquire it, without really believing it because of its estimate. However, the Musée Orsay won the wonderful cup (ill. 1) we reproduced in our article on American sales, for $2,117,000 (including fees): It’s rare to see a French museum make such a handsome acquisition abroad, when they often only know how to mobilize when the work is already in France.

1. Jean-Valentin Morel (1794-1860)
Cup with the Story of Perseus and Andromeda, 1855
Hard stone, gold, enamel - H. 65 cm
Paris, Musée d’Orsay
Photo: Sotheby’s

See the image in its page

The Hope Cup, despite being a masterpiece of the decorative arts under the Second Empire, had in fact never been preserved in France. Remained in the possession of Hope’s descendants until 1917, it was then sold to a London collection and crossed the Atlantic in the early 1960s, notably to the Duveen collection. It will now delight visitors to the Musée d’Orsay, as one of the museum’s major works.

2. Jean-Valentin Morel (1794-1860)
Cup with the Story of Perseus and Andromeda, 1855 (detail)
Hard stone, gold, enamel - H. 65 cm
Paris, Musée d’Orsay
Photo: Sotheby’s

See the image in its page

Instead of Hope Cup, we prefer the more iconographically accurate Cup with the Story of Perseus and Andromeda, which was the name it bore in the exhibition "The Second Empire. Art in France under Napoleon III [1]" organized by Detroit, Philadelphia and the Grand Palais [2]. Indeed, it is this mythological episode in which Perseus rescues Andromeda from the dragon’s clutches that is depicted here, in infinite detail and using a variety of techniques.

Although the work was given in the sale to the goldsmith Jean-Valentin Morel, who is the only one to have signed it (ill. 2), he is in fact the master-builder who directed a team of several specialized artists. Morel had been…