Pair of vases ca. 1780 possibly Russian, St. Petersburg with French mounts In the second half of the eighteenth-century, French designers sought ever rarer and more exotic materials for decorative objects. This pair of vases, of a granite called orbicular diorite found in both Corsica and the Ural mountains, may have been turned and polished either in Paris or St. Petersburg, where there was a luxury market for hard stone objects. They were then completed in Paris with gilt-bronze mounts including large handles in the form of rams' heads and finials with a knob of berries above acanthus leaves. Objects of this quality were much sought after by collectors and were sometimes especially commissioned by the Parisian dealers called "marchands merciers".. Pair of vases. possibly Russian, St. Petersburg with French mounts. ca. 1780. Orbicular diorite, gilt bronze. Metalwork-Gilt Bronze