A very fine Swedish gilt bronze mounted porphyry vase, the Älvdalen porphyry ovoid body surmounted by a domed lid with a Paris made gilt bronze pinecone finial and stiff leaf border around the neck terminating in elaborate foliate scrolled handles with acanthus scrolled border above the spreading porphyry foot on a square porphyry plinth on a squared stepped gilt bronze base cast with a ribbon-tied laurel and oak leaf wreath on each side The porphyry vase: Ãlvdalen, (Elfdal) Sweden, date circa 1790; The gilt bronze mounts: Paris, date circa 1810-20 Height including the base 79 cm. Vases of identical design made from porphyry mined at Ãlvdalen are known. This vase almost certainly dates from the earliest phase of production circa 1785-95 and relates specifically to one of C. F. Sundvall's drawings of a porphyry vase executed circa 1788-1790, appearing as plate V on a sheet headed "Les Prophyres d'Elfdal en Suede, que je vendent à Stockholm, Manufacture des Porphyres d'Elfdal". While some vases were left unadorned, others such as this example were later embellished with mounts made by the Parisian bronziers. The valley of Ãlvdalen (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 Ãlvdalen was categorised into at least 22 different types, the present example is most probably a type known as Blyberg, so named after the parish in which it was mined. 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 Ãlvdalen parishes, from where they were quarried. In 1857 Charles XIV, son Oscar I sold the Ãlvdalen 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 Ãlvdalen Porphyry Museum and the reconstructed Western grinding-mill at Porfyrgarden (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 the Grand Duke Cosimo I financed its use for large-scale monumental sculpture.