A very fine Swedish porphyry Campagna vase, with moulded rim on a spreading trumpet foot and square base Älvdalen, Sweden, date circa 1820-25 Height 39 cm. Provenance: A member of the Imperial Russian family and through marriage to the Grand Dukes of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. A member of the von Wulfen family who owned large estates near Magdeburg and Berlin and thence by descent to one of the two granddaughters of the last von Wulfen of Schloss Wendgreben. Vases of identical design made from porphyry mined at Älvdalen are known; some were mounted with gilt bronze while others such as this example or another identical vase in Prince Frederik Adolf’s anteroom in the Royal Palace, Stockholm were left unadorned. The valley of Älvdalen (Elfdal) and its bordering parishes appear to be the only serious European mining source for porphyry during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. A porphyry seam was discovered there in 1731; in 1785 Councillor Nils Adam Bielke showed samples of the stone to Gustaf III, who was impressed and wanted to decorate the Haga Palace with porphyry. The works were officially opened in 1788 by a privately run group of governors and industrialists with the aim of producing porphyry objects. Eric Hagström, its first manager, introduced new mining techniques under the direction of Bielke and within a few years there were three grinding mills with water driven machines. Despite the quality of its productions, the privately run business suffered financial difficulties and thus in 1818 the works were acquired by Charles XIV, the first Swedish Bernadotte King with the intention of introducing the splendours of the French Empire style into Sweden. Decorative objects such as vases and urns were also often given as diplomatic presents to important figures within European and Russian society. Distinguished by its speckled appearance, the porphyry at Älvdalen was categorised into at least 22 different types. An inventory made at the beginning of the 1800’s by the Mining Intendance at Stockholm described two as granitelle while the others were named after the Älvdalen parishes, from where they were quarried. In 1857 Charles XIV’s son Oscar I sold the Älvdalen works to a local businessman but ten years later a fire caused devastation and thereafter production was sporadic and limited. More recently in 1988 King Carl XVI Gustaf opened the Älvdalen Porphyry Museum and the reconstructed Western grinding-mill at Porfyrgården (the Porphyry Mansion) in Näset The beauty of porphyry was recognised by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans who carved this remarkably hard rock into statuary, sarcophagi, intarsias etc. Named by the Romans after the similarity between some of the deeper red varieties with the colour purple, known as purpura, it came to acquire a sacred or celebratory significance, probably because purple was associated with regal dignity. The Renaissance Courts also appreciated its significance. Rome became a flourishing trading centre for excavated antique porphyry while in Florence Grand Duke Cosimo I financed its use for large-scale monumental sculpture. http://www.richardreddingantiques.com/collection/decorative/a-very-fine-swedish-porphyry-campagna-vase