CIRCA 1755-60

Details

A RARE FAMILLE ROSE EUROPEAN-SUBJECT PLATE
CIRCA 1755-60
Enamelled with a central roundel en camaïeu rose with details picked out in gilt depicting a lady seated in a chair washing her feet in a tub, a young attendant pouring water into the tub from a vessel, within a pink and violet stylised floral surround and a similarly enamelled border of a continuous meander of leaves, berries and flowers, divided in the well by gilt spearheads
9¼ in. (23.5 cm.) diam.

Provenance

François Hervouët; Sotheby's London, 3 November 1987, lot 821.

Literature

F. and N. Hervouët and Y. Bruneau, La Porcelaine des Compagnies des Indes à Décor Occidental, Paris, 1986, p. 124, fig. 6.28 (colour plate).

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium

Lot Essay

This scene is after an engraving by Duflos entitled 'Le Bain'. See Hervouët and Bruneau op.cit. p.124, where the authors explain that in the original engraving the servant is a dark-skinned youth. This, they continue, has led to the suggestion that this scene depicts Madame du Barry, a favourite of Louis XV, and her negro page, Zamore. However, the style of the border on these plates indicates a date of circa 1760, when Jeanne Bécu, later to become Madame du Barry, would have only been a child. They suggest that the scene merely depicts an affluent lady with a blackamoor attendant, a fashionable status symbol at that time. See also ibid. p. 125, figs. 6.29-35 for variations originating from the same engraving. An identical plate is in the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels, exhibited Chinese Export Porcelain, Hong Kong, 30 November 1989 - 27 February 1990, pp. 218 and 219, no.86.

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