Jaccardiniera with antique figures

Ceramics, bronze; height 38 cm, length 69.5 cm, width 26 cm.
France, 19th/20th century, figures on handles secondary.
Boat-shaped ceramic vessel, bulging at the bottom, domed, covered with black glaze; edges slightly turned up. The bronze frame: the base is surrounded by a strip of stylized leaves, supported on the front and back by knocked flattened spheres topped with a shell among acanthus, and on the sides by acanthus legs ending in a volute. Connected to them decorative handles made of forked acanthus leaves - are topped with full-figured Bacchic figures: on one side - a seated young man clad in animal skins, holding a chalice in one hand and in the other a tyrs ending in a cone; on the opposite side - a half-naked female figure with a harp. On the underside of the jardiniere, a red-gold enamel mark - framed by laurel branches, a shield under a royal crown, with three lilies, the monogram "WL", the date "1895" and a fourth lily at the bottom.