Hertford bought it at the prince de Beauvais's sale, it fetched 31,900 francs. It is now in the Wallace Collection, which contains the finest and most representative gathering of Gouthière's undoubted work. The mounts of gilt bronze, cast and elaborately chased, show satyr's heads, from which hang festoons of vine leaves, while within the feet a serpent is coiled to spring. A smaller cup is one of the treasures of the Louvre. There too is a bronze clock, signed by Gouthière, cizileur et doreur du Roy a Paris, dated 1771, with a river god, a water nymph symbolizing the Rhne and its tributary the Durance, and a female figure typifying the city of Avignon. Not all of Gouthière's work is of the highest quality, and much of what he executed was from the designs of others. At his best his delicacy, refinement and finish are exceedingly delightfulin his great moments he ranks with the highest alike as artist and as craftsman. The tone of soft dead gold which is found on some of his mounts he is believed to have invented, but indeed the gilding of all his superlative work possesses a remarkable quality. This charm of tone is admirably seen in the bronzes and candelabra which he executed for the chimney-piece of Marie Antoinette's boudoir at Fontainebleau. He continued to embellish Louveciennes for Madame du Barry until the Revolution, and then the guillotine came for her and absolute ruin for him. When her property was seized she owed him 756,000 livres, of which he never received a sol, despite repeated applications to the administrators. "Réduit a solliciter une place à l'hospice, il mourut dans la misére." So it was stated in a lawsuit brought by his sons against du Barry's heirs. External links 1732 births 1813 deaths People from Bar-sur-Aube