Royal Riches and Parisian Trinkets: The embassy of Saïd Mehemet Pacha to France in 1741-42 and its exchange of gifts.

This article published for The Court Historian is a résumé of research undertaken into diplomatic relations between France and the Ottoman Empire in the middle of the eighteenth century.

Some French purchases by William Beckford

"Mylord Beckford est, dit-on, un amateur très curieux de réunir chez lui tout ce qu'il y a de plus parfait en productions d'art et de manufactures."

Although many of William Beckford's purchases of French works of art are well recorded, two aspects of his collecting mania remain relatively unknown to Beckford enthusiasts, namely those of Savonnerie carpets and Sèvres porcelain.

Pierre Verlet has amply documented Beckford's purchases of two carpets specially woven for him at the Royal carpet factory known as the Savonnerie (because it was situated in buildings formerly occupied by soap works), on the Cours-la-Reine, then just outside Paris, close to the site now occupied by the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

Both carpets were woven to designs approved by Beckford. Neither are known to have survived today, and we only have a summary description for one of them: "un bouquet de fleurs sur un fond mordoré, entouré d'une bordure jaune" (a bunch of flowers on a bronze-coloured background, with a yellow border). Both carpets were extremely small, measuring 227 x 113 cm and 227 x 83 cm .

The first carpet was delivered to Beckford on 27 March 1792. A few days previously, the Sèvres porcelain factory sales registers record the delivery of a set of plates:

Le 13 Mars 1792

Livré à Milord Betfort

72 assiettes unies, Parasol Chinois, Arabesques @ 33 2376 (livres)

A further set of 48 plates were sold on 23 November 1792 :

Mad. Lefebure Née le Clercq
Pour Milord Betfort

48 Assiettes Parasol Chinois @ 39 1872 (livres)

So who was "Milord Betfort"? No Englishman with a name of that precise spelling has been found to date. The only close candidates are the fifth Duke of Bedford and William Beckford. The latter is by far the most likely, for the following reasons:

1. He was in Paris in March 1792, as can be shown by the delivery he took of a carpet a fortnight later. It is also known he was there from November 1792 to May 1793.
2. The Savonnerie factory correspondance sometimes refers to him as "Beckfort", a spelling halfway to the Sèvres one. The bronzier François Rémond even spelt his name "Befort" in a document of 1793 . Such misspellings are not uncommon for difficult foreign names in France at this period. Milord was not a specific title, and was often used to refer to or flatter a rich Englishman.
3. Another purchase from Sèvres establishes a connection between "Betfort" and the goldsmith Henry Auguste, whose work for William Beckford is already well documented :

Crédit du voyage de Paris
du 25 Décembre 1792 au 13 Janvier 1793

A Milord Betfort.
Livré à M. Auguste

1 Tasse 24
1 ditto 72
2 id @ 240 480

576
Remise 9 % 52
524 (livres)

The inordinately high price for two of the cups (certainly with saucers) indicates a very lavish decoration. Many of the expensive cups and saucers sold by Sèvres at this period had portraits of literary or historical worthies, and it is not impossible that these were of this kind .

What did the parasol chinois plates look like? David Peters has pointed out that the 120 were the only ones sold, and that they are probably identical to sets of plates which have appeared at auction at Christie's recently, one at the house sale of Croxteth Hall, the Earl of Sefton's family seat in Liverpool, the other in London .

The shape of these plates is perfectly circular, devoid of any of the lobes which characterised Sèvres plates until the 1780's. This simple shape was called by the factory assiette bord uni. The decoration consists of a border pattern comprising on the outside a red ground with gilt semicircles outlined with gilt dots, an umbrella-like shaded yellow frieze (giving the decoration its name), and a floral pattern of garlands of red flowers with blue cornflower sprigs. In the centre of the plates is a ring of dark blue with a gilt pearl frieze, enclosing a bunch of red roses. A drawing for the plates is included among the album of the factory's plate designs as no.134, with the price noted as 39 livres. Normally, the Sèvres factory sold plates as part of services, with a variety of components of matching decoration. The absence of any with this set is further indication of a special, even eccentric, commission.

That the plates were specially ordered is almost certain. 78 white plates were given to the factory's painters on 10 January 1792 to be painted with this pattern, which would suggest that the client visited Sèvres shortly beforehand, and chose the pattern himself. In cases where the factory made a service for stock, pieces were usually given to the painters over a period of a few months. The plates had their final firing on 6 March, after which it only remained to burnish the gilding before the delivery on 13 March.

As is pointed out in the catalogue of Christie's 1980 sale, the plates are in "the English Adam taste", despite being described as "chinois" at Sèvres. The designer Jean-Démosthène Dugourc, Belanger's brother-in-law, employed the fan pattern on a number of occasions at this period, especially for Spanish Royal palaces. It was then described as an éventail antique, or à aile de chauve-souris. Dugourc is not known to have supplied any designs to Sèvres at this period, but Jean-Jacques Lagrenée, who was employed by the factory, worked in a very similar style.

There were a number of Sèvres plates of unspecified decoration in one of the Fonthill sale catalogues . There were no Sèvres plates in the Hamilton Palace sale of 1882.

It seems probable to me that it was William Beckford who purchased the parasol chinois plates, although no further evidence exists to substantiate this claim.

Aileen Dawson has pointed out another piece of Sèvres owned by William Beckford . This is so unlike any other piece made by the Royal porcelain factory that it has been catalogued as Chinese, and the similar examples at the British Museum as Meissen. It is a ewer at Brodick Castle , which is of hard-paste, has a brown ground upon its lobed body, and relief prunus decoration left white. It dates from the early 1780's, but it is not known when it was bought. Presumably Beckford at least knew what it was!
 

In 1999, Lord and Lady Rosebery agreed to lend a few pieces of Vincennes and Sèvres from Dalmeny to the Paris International Ceramics Show. This is the text of the article I wrote in the catalogue on that occasion.

Vincennes and Sèvres Porcelain from the collection of the Earl and Countess of Rosebery at Dalmeny House in Scotland

The organisers of the second Salon International de la Céramique de Collection et des Arts du Feu are happy to be able to thank the Earl and Countess of Rosebery for so kindly agreeing to lend us a selection of their collection of Vincennes-Sèvres porcelain of the eighteenth century for our special exhibition.

There are many reasons for which we are grateful for this loan from the Rosebery collection. Firstly, it should not be forgotten that the British were the first to appreciate French decorative arts after the French Revolution. It is thanks to their activity as collectors that many English and Scottish country houses and museums are still furnished today with fine French eighteenth-century furniture and works of art, many of which with prestigious royal provenances.

The pieces we will be showing at the Hôtel Dassault come from one of these great collections formed during the nineteenth century. But that is not all, since this collection is also part of a wider european tradition. It owes its origin to Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild, son of Baron Nathan Mayer, one of five brothers who departed the Frankfurt ghetto to found a powerful finance house in each important european capital.

Mayer Amschel had an only child, a daughter Hannah, who married in 1878 the fifth Earl of Rosebery. For their stupendous palace at Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, built for Mayer Amschel by Joseph Paxton, the architect of the Crystal Palace, they amassed collections of furniture, paintings, goldsmith's work, porcelain and other works of art.

In its heyday, the contents of Mentmore were comparable to those of the neighbouring estate of Waddesdon, which belonged to Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, a member of the Austrian branch of the family who settled in England with his wife, a member of the English branch. Waddesdon is today open to the public and its collections catalogued by important art historians.

As for Mentmore, most of its contents were sold through Sotheby's in 1977 after the death of the present Earl's father. This legendary housesale allowed fine works of art to enter most of the important museums and private collections of the world. Among the ceramics, mention should be made of the pair of buckets (tinettes) from the service made for Marie-Antoinette's dairy at Rambouillet, a unique form created by Sèvres to imitate wooden buckets and assist the Queen with her fantasy of playing at milkmaids.

But the family did not sell everything. Today at Dalmeny, near Edinburgh, one can see a fine collection of works of art, including important French furniture, old master paintings, Savonnerie carpets, Sèvres porcelain, as well as the interesting collection of Napoleonic souvenirs assembled by the fifth Earl.

Some of the porcelain collection was too fragile to travel. We therefore urge you to come to Scotland to visit this fine gothic house, in its beautiful surroundings on the edge of the Firth of Forth. Among the porcelain to be seen there is the magnificent pot-pourri Pompadour with pink camaieu decoration of landscapes and a hare hunt. This form of pot-pourri was one of the first large vase shapes designed at the factory, in the early 1750's, and it was natural to name it in honour of the factory's greatest patron. It seems an extraordinary coincidence that of the six vases of this shape and of the largest size, five were at Mentmore, including the beautiful pair with violet ground and gilt garlands now the pride and joy of the Musée National de Céramique.

Lord and Lady Rosebery have kindly lent us a selection of Vincennes and Sèvres pieces from their collection, including several with prestigious and interesting provenances: pieces from two of Louis XV's table services, pair of vases Hollandois bought by the Dauphine, Marie-Josèphe de Saxe, and the amazing oyster pyramid which belonged to the banker Nicolas Beaujon. In addition, the work of the finest painters at the factory is represented, Armand and Dodin.

In the catalogue which follows the pieces have been placed in chronological order. We have put in brackets the name which was given them at the factory in the eighteenth century. We have tried to discover the identity of the original owner. This is usually only possible in the case of tablewares, and through the research undertaken for many years by David Peters. Our thanks to him and to Rosalind Savill for her help and advice. Her knowledge of the collection is considerable, and has led her to many discoveries, including for example the royal origin of the pair of vases Hollandois.
 

VINCENNES

1. Covered milk jug (pot à lait ordinaire). Bleu céleste ground, birds in landscapes. Silver-gilt mount. Interlaced L's enclosing date-letter A for 1753-54. Height 12.7 cm.

   Bleu céleste, the factory's finest and most expensive ground colour, was employed from 1753. At first, it was made using ground-up turquoise-coloured Venetian glass. This technique produced an intense, cloudy and uneven surface, which was nevertheless extremely aesthetically pleasing. In 1756, a cheaper method was developed, resulting in a more even and, paradoxically, less attractive finish. This jug is a fine example of the early application of bleu céleste.
    

2. Shaped square tray (corbeille quarrée de 7 pouces 1/2). Bleu céleste ground, flowers in the reserve. Border gilding pattern of arrowheads. Interlaced L's enclosing date-letter C for 1755-56. Painter's mark a trefoil. Width 17 cm.

   Probably one of the two "corbeilles quarrées de 7 1/2 pouces" which formed part of the third delivery, in December 1755, of the service ordered by Louis XV in 1753 and delivered in three stages in 1753-55. This has two types of gilt border pattern for the reserves, overlapping discs or arrowheads. These square low basket-shaped trays cost 300 livres each. They were used on the table during the dessert course, for pyramids of fruit.

   The factory apparently only made this shape in one size. The only two listed in the sales registers at Vincennes are those for the king's service. But the size of 7 1/2 pouces (about 20.3 cm), only corresponds if the object is measured diagonally, so it seems plausible that that is how it was done, rather than along each side as we might do today. As for the decoration it is identical to that on the octagonal and lozange-shaped trays from the collection of the Dukes of Abercorn, which are certainly from the service.

   Louis XV's bleu céleste service marks a turning point in the history of the Vincennes porcelain factory. The new rococo shapes designed for it by Jean-Claude-Thomas Duplessis formed the basis for the factory's production of servicewares until the Revolution, and the bleu céleste ground, invented for the service, was inspired by the "Celestial Empire", but it was also the colour of the ribbon of the King's most important order of chivalry, the Saint Esprit.

   When the service was first unveiled at Versailles at one of Louis XV's intimate supper parties, on 4 February 1754, one of the guests, the duc de Croÿ, described the scene: "The King made us unpack his beautiful blue white and gold service from Vincennes, which had just arrived from Paris, where it had been exhibited for connoisseurs to admire. This is one of the first masterpieces of this new porcelain factory which intends to surpass and supplant Meissen. The Marquise [Madame de Pompadour], to whom the King has given the village of Sèvres, is embarked on important building works for this factory next to her glass factory."
    

SÈVRES

3. Pair of vases (vase Hollandois, second size). Green ground "en plein", gilt trophies. Interlaced L's, date-letter E for 1757-58. Height 19 cm,

   Apparently the examples bought by the Dauphine, Marie-Josèphe de Saxe, on 30 December 1758, at a cost of 210 livres each, along with a central vase of the first size (300 livres) and two pot-pourris of unspecified shape (each 120 livres).

   The vase Hollandois was one of the factory's most popular shapes from the 1750's onwards. Designed to grow tulip bulbs (hence the name "Dutch" vases) it is formed of a base into which water is poured, and in which the upper part (with a pierced base) stands with earth and the bulbs. Already in the eighteenth century it was the habit to fill these with bunches of porcelain flowers which replaced the short-lived tulips. One wonders on how many occasions tulips were actually grown in anything so precious.

   This kind of all-over green ground colour is extremely uncommon and represents an experiment by the factory in harmonising porcelain with interior decoration. The gilt trophies recall those found carved and gilded on boiserie, or as gilt-bronze mounts on marquetry furniture. Another example of this decoration is on a pedestal for a biscuit bust of Louis XV. This object, recently purchased by The Frick Collection, New York, has a green ground with gilt trophies and may have been an example purchased by the Duchess of Parma, Louis XV's daughter, in 1760.
    

4. Circular bottle cooler (seau à liqueur du Roi). Rococo shape with handles. Pink ground, polychrome hunting scenes on both sides. Interlaced L's, date-letter F for 1758-59. Height 13 cm.
    
5. Oval decanter cooler (seau ovale). Oval cooler for two liqueur decanters, with removeable separation in between. Pink ground, polychrome hunting scenes on both sides. Interlaced L's, date-letter F for 1758-59. Length 31 cm.

   Both of these are from a service bought from the factory in 1758 by the marchand-mercier Madame Lair to sell to Louis XV. The factory sold supplements for this service to the Royal household for a number of years and this has enabled David Peters to identify it for what it is. In addition the decoration is of royal significance; it is inspired by one of the most beautiful series of tapestries ever woven at the Gobelins, Les Chasses de Louis XV, after designs by Jean-Baptiste Oudry from 1736, produced for the King. In a break with the formal tradition of the Gobelins workshops these show the royal hunting forests with scenes from the king's hunts. Sèvres was to use this inspiration once again for Louis XVI, in a series of plaques delivered in 1782 to Versailles, and possibly intended to be displayed in the same room that the service was already used in.

   The seau à liqueur du roi was perhaps painted by Armand l'ainé, who for many years was the factory's highest-paid painter, specialising in polychrome birds in landscapes. It is interesting to compare the quality of the painting on these two.
    

6. Night-light or perfume burner (veilleuse?). Green ground with rustic scenes, on one side two seated peasants. Interlaced L's, date-letter G for 1759, painter's mark k for Charles-Nicolas Dodin. Height 16.5 cm.

   Only five of these extraordinary objects are known to survive. Unfortunately none can be identified in the factory's sales registers, and therefore we do not know who were their original owners. The example in the Wallace Collection still had its polychrome hen, while the one in a Paris private collection has its silver-gilt mounts. It may be impossible to tell whether the Rosebery one was originally surmounted by a hen or by a pierced cover as on the example at Waddesdon.

   The two seated figures are close in style to engravings of "Fêtes Flamandes" by Le Bas after Teniers. The factory owned this series and single figures were often extracted by the Sèvres painters to create new groupings for reserves.

   Provenance: General Edward P. Lygon, sale, Christie's, 25 April 1864, lot 187, 415 guineas.
    

7. Pair of pedestals (piedestal). Green ground, reserves with polychrome birds in trees. Interlaced, date-letter G for 1759, painter's mark a crescent for Louis-Denis Armand. Height 14.3 cm.

   These pedestals were first produced in the late 1750's to act as stands for busts of Louis XV and Marie Leczinska, which were designed to celebrate the king's acquisition of the factory in 1759. Claude Bonnet, the agent of the Court of Parma in Paris, purchased several, and wrote to Dutillot, the Parma prime minister, in 1760 that he was sending "the portraits of the King and Queen also in biscuit porcelain, on small pedestals which are used for flowers when the busts are removed". A pair in the Wallace Collection has small porcelain rings which were probably intended to support bulbs. Sadly, it has been impossible to find trace of these in the factory's sales registers.
    

8. Oyster pyramid (Platteaux à huitres avec coquilles). Shaped circular tray decorated with blue feuille-de-choux, garlands of flowers and trophies of love, music and war. Gilt bronze tree supporting four tiers with 18 shells and a circular single shell above. Height 36.5 cm. 1765.

   One of four sold by the factory on 26 September 1765 to "M. Beaujan", undoubtedly Nicolas Beaujon, the well-known financier who subsequently bought the Hôtel de Pompadour (now the Elysée Palace) and retired there. Beaujon bought a small dinner service with 144 plates and a variety of other components, probably, like the pyramids, all decorated with feuille-de-choux and trophies. The four trays or bases (described as "platteaux à huitres") cost 60 livres each, and the 78 shells ("coquilles") 7 livres 10 sous, making a total for the whole lot of 825 livres, which does not include mounting. This was not billed by the factory and will have been done for Beaujon by a bronzier, perhaps through a marchand-mercier.

   The first oyster pyramids of this kind were sold by the factory to the dealer Simon-Philippe Poirier in the second half of 1760. He purchased four "Platteaux à huitres fleurs" for 42 livres each along with a total of 76 coquilles at 7 livres 10 sous. As Svend Eriksen has shown these were sold to the banker Claude Bonnet for the Court of Parma on 10 December 1760. The mounts, made of bronze, modelled and varnished red to resemble coral, cost 70 livres each.

   Although this pyramid is unmarked, one of the other two from Mentmore bears the date-letter M for 1765 and the painter's mark for Catrice. The fourth Beaujon one was formerly in Paris in the collection of Madame Camille Lelong.

   Svend Eriksen has noted that Madame de Pompadour's posthumous inventory mentions a tray with 18 shells, and that in 1784 and 1785 Louis XVI bought enough shells for three or four pyramids.

   These thoroughly practical objects, intended perhaps to serve oysters out of their shell, must have looked particularly impressive when all four were on a dining table accompanied with biscuit groups. They are probably yet another instance of the inventive drive of the marchands-merciers of eighteenth-century Paris.
    

9. Pair of square bulbpots (piédestal à oignon). Dark blue (bleu nouveau) ground. Polychrome trophies on three sides, on one side flying putti. Interlaced L's, date-letter 0 for 1767, painter's mark k for Charles-Nicolas Dodin. Height 14 cm.

   This shape of pedestal was designed at Sèvres in 1756, but it is difficult to identify them in the archives as they can be confused with other pedestals such as no. 7 in the present exhibition, or even with the small pedestals for biscuit vases, such as those in Louis XV's bleu céleste service. They were specifically intended for growing tulip or hyacinth bulbs, and were invariably sold in pairs. On this pair, Dodin is only responsible for the putti, while the trophies, some of which relate to gardening, are probably the work of a specialist painter such as Buteux.
    

10. Ewer and basin (pot à l'eau tourné and jatte ovale de pot à l'eau). Yellow ground with garlands and friezes, polychrome landscapes. Interlaced L's, date-letter kk for 1787, painter's mark for André-Vincent Vielliard. Height of ewer 19 cm. Length of basin 26.7 cm.

    A fine example of the elegant yet rustic production of the Sèvres factory just before the Revolution. The yellow ground which had been employed at Vincennes in the mid 1750's makes its comeback in the late 1780's, and is often used with these elaborate patterns and charming landscapes. In 1787 Vielliard worked mostly on yellow-ground pieces, and on 1 April he painted landscapes on a pot à l'eau et jatte which could well be this example.
     

11. Cylindrical cup and saucer (gobelet litron, 1st size). Dark blue ground, gilt chinoiseries and scrolls. Sevres RF mark, gilder's mark LG for Etienne-Henry Le Guay. Circa 1793-95.

    At this period the Sèvres factory's production complimented the current fashion for lacquer furniture and objects. As Geoffrey de Bellaigue has shown, the factory used the engravings of Jean Pillement, a French artist who spent much of his career in England. In 1758, he published a set of engravings entitled: "Livres des Chinois". Some of these engravings were faithfully copied by the porcelain painters, but they mostly seem to have been simplified and adapted to the porcelain shapes.

    Etienne-Henry Le Guay is one of that generation of artists who began his career at Vincennes in the 1740's, and who was still working at Sèvres during the Revolutionary period. It was thanks to the personal intervention of Madame de Pompadour with his commanding officer that he was able to purchase his discharge from the army and return to Vincennes. He became one of the factory's finest gilders, and its highest paid. He worked mainly on cups and saucers, but was also the main gilder for Louis XVI's great dinner service.