Square in form and set on all sides with 17th Century Limoges oval portraits of Caesars and at the corners with bronze heads of male busts wearing hats; with remnants of gilding, 21cm x 18cm.
They appear in the window bay of the Blue Silk Dressing Room in a drawing by Lady Sophia Cecil, made in 1818.
Lady Sophia (1791-1823), a talented artist, was the daughter of Henry, 10th Earl and 1st Marquess of Exeter (1754-1804).
Over a number of years she recorded many of the rooms and the main facades at Burghley, which provide an important record of the House in the early 19th Century.
The 1867 Burghley Inventory records: ‘A pair of square chased ormolu frame flower pots with marble panels inlaid with black and white enamel portraits of Romans, tin liners.’
From the Laudin workshops, in Limoges, which were run by Jacques Laudin, (c1627-1695) and his son Jacques II, (c1665-1729) until the early 18th Century.
