THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

A PAIR OF SEVRES BLEU CELESTE FLOWER VASES AND STANDS (VASES 'HOLLANDOIS NOUVEAU OVALE', 3EME GRANDEUR)

BLUE INTERLACED L'S ENCLOSING DATE LETTER L FOR 1764 AND PAINTER'S MARK FOR ROUSSEAU TO THE BASE OF BOTH VASES, BOTH STANDS UNMARKED

Details

A PAIR OF SEVRES BLEU CELESTE FLOWER VASES AND STANDS (VASES 'HOLLANDOIS NOUVEAU OVALE', 3EME GRANDEUR)
Blue interlaced L's enclosing date letter L for 1764 and painter's mark for Rousseau to the base of both vases, both stands unmarked
Each serpentine fan-shaped vase painted on the front with pastoral scenes in the style of Watteau: one with a shepherd playing his horn, the other a shepherdess seated on rocks before a tree, her arms around a sheep at her right, a birdcage suspended from its branches, the side panels with pastoral trophies suspended from bows, the reticulated stand with panels of flowers on the front and at the sides, each reserved on the turquoise ground within elaborate gilt ciselé cartouches of entwined vine and seeded panels, the reverse of both vase and stand gilt with entwined vine
7 5/8in. (19.3cm.) high; 6in. (15.3cm.) wide at the mouth (2)

Provenance

Comtesse d'Aubigny, Christie's London, 21 June 1976, lot 172
The Christner Collection; Christie's New York, 30 November/1 December 1979, lot 193

Literature

Rosalind Savill, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, London, 1988, vol. I, p. 116, footnote u

Exhibited

Dallas, Texas, Dallas Convention Center, Loan Collection, 17-20 March 1977, no. 20

Lot Essay

The vase 'Hollandois nouveau ovale' was first produced in 1758 in five sizes. The upper portion holds the plant in earth and has holes pierced along the lower edge of the deep flange that sits into the stand in order to water from the bottom.

A pair of vases 'Hollandois nouveau ovale' in the Wallace Collection, London, these painted with harbor scenes reserved on a bleu lapis vermiculé ground, have the same date letter and painter's mark as that found on the present examples. See Rosalind Savill, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of the Sèvres Porcelain, London 1988, no. C-223-224.

Several pair also with the gilt decoration only on the ground color and no painted sce4nes on the reverse are known. Among these are an unmarked bleu céleste pair painted with figures in landscapes in the manner of Teniers from the collection of Elizabeth Parke Firestone was sold Christie's New York, 21/22 March 1991, lot 236; and an apple green pair dated 1760 and painted by Viellard with Teniers scenes from the collection of Samuel H. Kress is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum. See Decorative Art from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1964, nos. 41a-b, Figs. 155-156.

Gabriel Rousseau was active at Sèvres as a painter 1761-1766.

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