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Click for a bibliography at the end of this page.
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Sèvres cup and saucer 1786 Gobelet litron et soucoupe, third size Mauve ground, dark purple upper and lower frieze, on the cup a wide rectangular reserve with a peacock and two small lozange panels with red roses; on the saucer, a square reserve with a peacock, and alternating lozange and circular panels with roses and butterflies. Height of cup 5.9 cm, diameter of saucer 12.0 cm. Interlaced Ls, date-letter ii for 1786, painter's mark for Etienne Evans. The peacock motif was a favourite of the fanmakers, as we can see from this trade card of the 1780's. Saucer with two sections restuck (7 cm). Stock Ref: WS 265 Price: £2,800
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Sèvres plate from the Marli d'or service, given by the Emperor Napoleon to Prince Schwarzenberg, ambassador of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, in 1812 Gold border with palmettes. In the centre, a painted scene with a boy and a girl in a landscape, signed Le Guay. Ø 23.9 cm. Printed mark in red "M. Imple de Sevres 1811". In black: "Paul et Virginie". In gold: "13 a". Scrawled in red: "Vu Alex B". 1811. During the Empire period, the Sèvres factory produced a number of dinner services with elaborate decoration, intended for the Emperor and his family, as well as for the high dignitaries of his Court and foreign rulers. As well as specific orders the factory's best painters were regularly handed plates to decorate as they saw fit, with figures, landscapes, cameos, flowers and other motifs. These had a solid gold ground applied around the edge, which was burnished with palmettes. The factory's list of services in production in 1813-14 (Pb.3 liasse II, travaux 1813-1814) includes the following comments which explains this practice: "No. 9 Service pittoresque marly d'or. Ce service qui n'a de caractère commun que le fond d'or rehaussé d'ornements à toutes les pièces est composé de toutes sortes de sujets peints par les meilleurs artistes dans chaque genre." (The only common element of this service is the ornamented gold ground; each piece has different subjects painted by the best artists in each speciality). The scrawled mark "vu Alex B" is the personal seal of approval by the factory's director Alexandre Brongniart. This is only found on a few pieces with high quality painting.
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The decoration is taken from a scene in the romantic novel Paul et Virginie, written by Bernardin de Saint Pierre and published in 1788. It is the story of two French children living in the Ile de France (now Mauritius) whose feelings for each other gradually turn from friendship to love as they grow up, and it ends tragically with Virginie drowning in a shipwreck and Paul dying of sorrow. The scene depicted here is a moment when the youngsters reflect on the ephemeral nature of life after a particularly violent storm. The signature on a rock to the left is for Etienne-Charles Le Guay (1762-1846), son of the Sèvres gilder Etienne-Henry Le Guay. He was trained as a painter at Sèvres but went to work for Paris factories, being responsible for the famous portrait of his employer Jean-Christophe Dihl at his desk with samples of his wares. It was then that he married his second wife, the hugely talented porcelain painter Marie-Victoire Jaquotot. He returned to Sèvres during the Empire period. A recent exhibition of the artist's drawings on paper (Galerie Alfa, Paris, 2003) showed a very similar scene with Paul carrying Virginie across a torrent, with the figures having the same features as on this plate. This was one of three plates decorated by Le Guay in 1811 with scenes from Paul et Virginie. They then formed part of marli d'or part service included in the gift made by order of Napoleon on 5 May 1812 to Prince Schwarzenberg, the Paris ambassador of the Emperor Francis I. Schwarzenberg had been responsible for the successful negotations that led to the marriage of Napoleon to Francis' daughter Marie-Louise in 1810. Further plates from this set of 48 are in the collection of Richard Baron Cohen (Twinight no. 60). Tiny area of wear to the gilding
in the inner well at 1 o'clock. Stock Ref: WS 266 Price: on application |
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Sèvres table sugar bowl, cover
and stand 1758-59 Sucrier ovale à compartiments et plateau Bleu lapis ground, flowers in the reserves, rich scroll and foliate gilding. Tray length 23.5 cm, width 19.9 cm, bowl length 15 cm, height 11 cm. Interlaced Ls, date-letter F for 1758-59, painter's mark for Louis-Jean Thévenet (active 1741-78). Thévenet was one of the first painters to join the young factory at Vincennes, and the style of his flower painting remained faithful to early Vincennes flower painting for the remainder of his long career. He is one of the few painters who style is instantly recognisable. Wear to gilding on tray rim and
well, and on bowl rim, restored. Stock Ref: WS 267 Price: on application
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Sèvres hard-paste porcelain cup painted by Armand l'ainé 1773
Gobelet litron, third size. Two large sprays of polychrome flowers. Gilt pattern all over the body with dots, bubbles and serrated areas. Height 5.9 cm. Underglaze crowned interlaced L's, overglaze date-letter u for 1773, painter's mark A for Louis-Denis Armand, known as Armand l'ainé.
The carefully-drawn mark of a serrifed capital A is that of the factory's best bird painter, Louis-Denis Armand, who also painted flowers. See for example Sotheby's Paris, Leon Levy collection, 2 October 2008, lot 33, for an ecuelle with this kind of flower painting and the capital A mark.
Armand was one of the first factory artists to join the hard-paste painting workshop, a testimony to the hopes that this novel material embodied, and 1773 is the first year that hard paste was widely produced commercially.
Though Armand is known for his mark with its elaborate interlaced L's, here the factory mark had already been applied in underglaze blue, so he was left to paint only the date-letter and his own mark.
As the saucer is missing, this represents a rare opportunity to acquire a fine and unusual example of Armand's work, perhaps his earliest piece on hard paste, at a reasonable cost.
Slight gilt wear restored.
Stock Ref: WS 252
Price: £2,400
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Sèvres porcelain red and gold
teapot 1815
Théière étrusque gaudronnée. Bright red and gold ground. Printed crowned interlaced L's mark enclosing a fleur de lys and "Sevres". Gilt mark "20 juin", "qz" for 1815, and BT for the gilder Boitel. Height 15.9 cm.
This shape of teapot was inspired by Antique pottery oil lamps in the Vivant-Denon collection, which had been bought by the comte d'Angiviller for Louis XVI in 1785, and deposited at Sèvres where it remains to this day. See Frédérique Citéra, "Aux origines du néo-classicisme à Sèvres", L'Estampille L'Objet d'Art, December 1991, pp. 52-66.
The shape was first designed in 1813, and this example formed part of a tea service which entered the factory sales room in August 1816 and was sold to the baron Destouches in 1820.
Cover with restored piece to
rim.
Stock Ref: WS 253
Price: £6,500
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Sèvres porcelain tortoiseshell
ground Teapot 1816
Théière Etrusque B. Large globular teapot with tall angular handle and spout in the form of a dragon's head. Mottled tortoiseshell ground (fond laque), gilt and platinum decoration of a frieze of vine leaves and grapes, a hanging garland of foliage, and overall gilding for the handle and spout. Height 16.5 cm, length 24.5 cm. Blue printed mark of interlaced L's enclosing a fleur de lys and the word "Sevres". Script mark in gilding DY.
This shape of teapot was designed in 1804, along with other teawares of shapes loosely inspired by Ancient Greek pottery. In early mentions it is also called "théière à bec de dragon", but from 1816 the name "théière étrusque B" is used.
A design of 1804 for this shape with Etruscan style decoration is in the Sèvres archives, reproduced in The Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory, Alexandre Brongniart and the Triumph of Art and Industry, exhibition catalogue, Bard Graduate Centre, New York, 1997-98, pl. 11a (also on the cover).
About eight of these teapots were made. We know of only of one other surviving example, of 1811. Ours must be the example which enters the factory sale room on 11 September 1816, described as "fond laque, décor en or". Its manufacturing cost is noted as 64 Francs, and its sale price at 100 Francs.
Very slight wear to the gilding
on the top edge of the teapot under the cover.
Stock Ref: WS 254
Price: £7,200
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Sèvres porcelain cup and saucer
with multicoloured ground and putti 1770
Gobelet Calabre et soucoupe, first size. Green, red and gold trellis ground. Grisaille decoration of a putto in clouds on the cup, and martial trophies in clouds on the saucer. Height of cup 8 cm, diameter of saucer 15.6 cm. Interlaced L's, painter's mark for Jacques Fontaine, gilder's mark 2000 for Henry-Fançois Vincent. Circa 1770.
This is one of the larger forms of cups at Sèvres, usually with correspondingly bold decoration. This is very much the case here, and the ground pattern makes a fine foil for the subtle grisaille decoration by Fontaine, whose speciality this was. Around 1770 Sèvres marks are often succinct, without the date-letter and painter's mark. Here without a date-letter one can suggest a date of 1770-72.
Stock Ref: WS234
Price: £4,400 |
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Sèvres porcelain tray and matching
tea service 1775
Déjeuner à baguettes. Decoration of garlands and wreaths of mixed flowers and red roses. In the centre of the tray, a polychrome trophy with a plumed crown, a bow and arrows with a quiver, and a sabre with lion's head pommel. Tray (plateau à baguettes, 39.4 x 26.7 cm), teapot (théière Calabre, length 14.5 cm, height 10.5 cm), sugar bowl (pot à sucre Bouret, second size, height 10 cm), milk jug (pot à lait à trois pieds, second size, height 10.1 cm), cup and saucer (gobelet litron et soucoupe, third size, height of cup 5.9 cm, diameter of saucer 12.3 cm). On most pieces, interlaced L's, date-letter x for 1775, painter's mark B.n for Nicolas Bulidon. The milk jug with date-letter ee for 1782 and Bulidon's mark.
At Sèvres, a tea service got its name from the name of the tray with matching decoration on which it stood. So as the tray is called a plateau à baguettes (presumably from the mouldings around the edge which look like rods or sticks) the whole set is called déjeuner à baguettes. This shape of tray is known from the late 1760's. For a detailed discussion of the shape see Wadsworth no. 96.
The milk jug dates from just seven years later. So clearly the service had a caring original owner who ordered a replacement of the same decoration when his milk jug got broken, and someone at the factory knew to go back to the original painter, Bulidon, to decorate another one.
Bears an Albert Amor label probably from the 1950's or 1960's.
The tray with a few firecracks
around the handles. The teapot with a tiny chip to the spout. The
cover of the sugar bowl with a chip which was glazed over and gilded.
Stock Ref: WS236
Price: £15,000 |
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Sèvres porcelain "Gothic"
cup and saucer 1825
Tasse Gothique et soucoupe. Cylindrical cup with flared lip, tall gilt scrolling leafy handle with at its base a winged angel head in matt gilding. Flat saucer with flared lip. Bright blue ground, at the top of the cylindrical part of the cup and around the well of the saucer a Gothic tracery motif in darker blue with gilt highlights. On the flared lip a pale green ground with darker green palmettes with gilt highlights. Height of cup 8.2 cm, diameter of saucer 15.6 cm. Cup with printed interlaced L's mark with a fleur de lys, the word "Sevres" and two indistinct digits below. Saucer with printed black interlaced C's mark with the word "Sevres" and a fleur de lys, the two digits 25 for 1825. Both pieces bear a script mark in gilding "gu 24 mai". 1825.
This form of cup was designed in 1815 and probably owes its name to the angel at the bottom of the handle. It must have been thought appropriate for decoration in the Gothic style, as a number were produced with Gothic motifs. See for example the two in the Brongniart exhibition at the Bard Graduate Center (Bard Brongniart, pp. 356-357).
Stock Ref: WS 243
Price: £4,200 |
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Mennecy porcelain candlestick 1745-50 On a circular rocky base stands a tall tree stump with a candle nozzle and drip pan. A sheep reclines at the foot of the tree. Height 18 cm. Unmarked. Circa 1745-50.
The modeller of this charming object may well have been inspired by the kind of sheep one sees in the engravings after François Boucher which were so popular at the time.
A pair of this model is included in a large set of Mennecy porcelain toilette objects fitted into a dressing table now in the David Collection, Copenhagen. It includes silver mounts marked for 1744-50 (see Whitehead p. 48). The porcelain was catalogued as St. Cloud when the museum purchased it at Christie's. It is a particularly good example of the sort of assemblages favoured by Parisian marchands-merciers at this period.
Semicircular piece repaired on
nozzle, about 1 cm high and 1 cm wide. Sheep's left ear repaired.
Chips to leaves.
Stock Ref: WS 246
Price: £3,200
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“La
Fontaine” This is a mid-nineteenth century example of the famous figure of the poet Jean de La Fontaine which was modelled as part of the series of the great men of France produced at the time of Louis XVI at the instigation of his arts minister the comte d'Angiviller.
The sculptor Pierre Julien was commissioned to produce La Fontaine in 1782.
The artist has chosen to represent the poet in a famous episode of his life, when he was seen one morning by the duchesse de Bouillon seated against a tree trunk meditating. When she came back past the same spot in the evening he was still there in exactly the same position. Julien has portrayed him in an ample cloak, with a gnarled tree on which a vine with grapes is climbing, holding a sheet of paper with the words engraved: Le renard et les raisins. Even the fox seated on the poet's hat looking enquiringly up at him does not seem to disturb him, but then, he is probably part of La Fontaine's meditative state. Around the base of the sculpture are low-relief scenes from some of his best-known Fables.
The plaster was shown at the Salon in 1783 and the lifesize marble at the 1785 Salon. A contemporary commentary confirms that this sculpture was considered to be extremely successful:
…le sculpteur a su faire passer
sur son visage la physionomie de son âme, et l'abandon de la composition
dans ce grand poète est parfaitement exprimée…le renard le regarde
et semble s'étonner de la simplicité de celui qui l'a si bien peint
et mis si finement en scène.
The biscuit porcelain version dates from 1784, with the first example sold to Louis XVI early in 1785. Fourteen were sold between 1785 and 1789. We know of two eighteenth-century examples today, one in the Louvre, and another in the museum at Le Puy-en-Velay, Julien's birthplace. An 1859 example is at Fontainebleau.
Normally we would not buy a biscuit figure that is such a late version of an eighteenth-century model. But in this case we were convinced by the rarity and quality of the model, as well as the quality of this example. It may never be possible to get an eighteenth-century or an Empire one.
Height 40 cm, maximum width about 35 cm. Impressed mark SEVRES within a line surround.
Right foot off and restuck. Pen
partly remade.
Stock Ref: WS 247
Price: £5,600 |
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| Alexander
and Diogenes
Niderviller
biscuit sculpture Late 18th century Biscuit
group showing Diogenes sitting in front of his barrel and gesturing
to Alexander to get out of the way of the sun. Height 35 cm. Marked
NIDERVILLER. End of the 18th century. We
have not seen another example of this fine and humorous model. This
scene, taken from Plutarch's Life of Alexander the Great, section
14, recounts the story of the encounter between the great conqueror
and the philosopher, leader of the Cynical school of philosophy: Small
restorations to extremities.
Stock
Ref: WS191 |
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| Sèvres
Oval Bowl (compotier ovale)
Polychrome
flower sprays, blue line edging. Length 27.3 cm, width 19.4 cm. Interlaced
L's, date-letter i for 1761, painter's mark a star for A. Caton.
Flower-decorated
servicewares and teawares were the Sèvres factory's most regular production.
The artists who painted them were often the same who painted flower
panels on more elaborately decorated objects, with a ground colour
for example. But it does not mean that these simple pieces are any
less well painted. We
normally have a number of pieces with this kind of painting, usually
bowls, dishes, plates and jugs, which as well as being decorative
are also useful. Stock
Ref: WS106 |
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| La Porcelaine de Vincennes This
is the standard reference work on the subject. "Tamara
Préaud, the Archivist at the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres, is associated
here with Antoine d'Albis, the Chief Scientist at the factory. They
are ideally placed to analyse those documents at Sèvres (and elsewhere)
covering the years from 1739 until the move to Sèvres in 1756. At
last this book corrects all previous accounts of the early history
of Vincennes, co-ordinating a vast range of often unpublished material
and providing an intriguing picture of the factory's early difficulties.
The chapters on the history and personnel cover the problems of launching
Vincennes, its funding, the individuals involved and their working
way of life. Until now comparatively little has been written about
the factory's techniques. Here, discussed by a scientist in meticulous
detail in a chapter brimming with new evidence, they enhance our understanding
and appreciation of the porcelain. This technical approach, together
with the authors' recent discovery of kiln coding at Vincennes, an
analysis of the annual introduction of shapes and decoration, and
a catalogue of shapes, provides the most comprehensive analysis ever
published of the factory's early production. These findings will arouse
curiosity and re-assessment wherever Vincennes is represented. The
numerous illustrations admirably serve the text. This
volume will be the most essential reference work on Vincennes for
many generations and its authors and publisher should be fêted for
their remarkable achievement. But it is not only a scholarly exposition
of a great porcelain factory, it is also a visual delight." Extracts
from Rosalind Savill's review of the book, in The Burlington Magazine,
September 1992. Stock
Ref: WS180 |
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Bibliography
Bachelier Jean-Jacques Bachelier (1724-1806) Peintre du Roi et de Madame de Pompadour, exh. cat., Musée Lambinet, Versailles, 1999-2000.
Bard Brongniart The Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory, Alexandre Brongniart and the Triumph of Art and Industry, 1800-1847, exh. cat., The Bard Graduate Center, New York, 1997-1998.
Boizot Louis-Simon Boizot (1743-1809) Sculpteur du roi et directeur de l'atelier de sculpture à la Manufacture de Sèvres, exh. cat., Musée Lambinet, Versailles, 2001-2002.
Bourgeois & Lechevallier-Chevignard
Emile Bourgeois & Georges Lechevallier-Chevignard, Le biscuit de Sèvres. Recueil des Modèles de la Manufacture de Sèvres au XVIIIe siècle, 1913.
British Museum Aileen Dawson, French Porcelain. A Catalogue of the British Museum Collection, London 1994.
Eriksen & de Bellaigue
Svend Eriksen & Geoffrey de Bellaigue, Sèvres Porcelain. Vincennes and Sèvres 1740-1800, London 1987.
Falconet Falconet à Sèvres 1757-1766 ou l'art de plaire, exh. cat., Musée national de céramique, Sèvres 2001-02.
Firestone The Elizabeth Parke Firestone Collection, Part I, Important French Porcelain, Christie's New York, 21-22 March 1991.
Getty Adrian Sassoon, Vincennes and Sèvres Porcelains, Catalogue of the Collections, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 1991.
Hermitage Natalie Kazakevich, Eighteenth-century Sèvres Porcelain in The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, 2003.
Jean-Richard Pierrette Jean-Richard, L'Oeuvre gravé de François Boucher dans la Collection Edmond de Rothschild au Musée du Louvre, Paris 1978.
Le Duc Geneviève Le Duc, Porcelaine tendre de Chantilly au XVIIIe siècle, Paris 1996.
Peters David Peters, Sèvres Plates and Services of the 18th Century, Little Berkhamsted, 2005. References given by allocated service number.
Plinval de Guillebon
Régine de Plinval de Guillebon, Faïence et porcelaine de Paris XVIIIe – XIXe siècles, Paris, Faton, 1995.
Préaud & Faÿ-Hallé
Tamara Préaud & Antoinette Faÿ-Hallé, Porcelaines de Vincennes. Les Origines de Sèvres, exh. cat., Grand Palais, Paris 1977-78.
Préaud & d'Albis Tamara Préaud & Antoine d'Albis, La Porcelaine de Vincennes, Paris 1991.
Royal Collection Geoffrey de Bellaigue, French porcelain in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, Royal Collection Enterprises, London 2009.
Schwartz Selma Schwartz, The French royal porcelain, Sèvres, The Marton Museum collection, Samobor 2005.
Twinight Refinement & Elegance, Early nineteenth century royal porcelain from the Twinight collection, New York, exh. cat., Berlin 2007.
Wadsworth Linda H. Roth & Clare Le Corbeiller, French Eighteenth-Century Porcelain at the Wadsworth Atheneum. The J. Pierpont Morgan Collection. Hartford 2000.
Wallace Rosalind Savill, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, London 1988.
Whitehead John Whitehead, The French Interior in the Eighteenth century, London 1992.
Wrightsman Carl C. Dauterman, The Wrightsman Collection, Volume IV, Porcelain, New York 1970