1758-59, BLUE INTERLACED LS ENCLOSING DATE LETTER F, PAINTER'S + MARK FOR MICAUD, PORCELAIN FLOWERS 18TH AND 19TH CENTURY, TOLE SHRUB AND GILT-METAL FOOT 19TH CENTURY OR LATER

Details

A SEVRES GILT-METAL MOUNTED TWO-HANDLED JARDINIERE
1758-59, BLUE INTERLACED LS ENCLOSING DATE LETTER F, PAINTER'S + MARK FOR MICAUD, PORCELAIN FLOWERS 18TH AND 19TH CENTURY, TOLE SHRUB AND GILT-METAL FOOT 19TH CENTURY OR LATER
Of tapering square section with rounded corners and serpentine sides, the front and reverse painted with bouquets of flowers and fruit within blue scrolling foliage cartouches, the sides with bouquets of flowers below angular handles enriched in gilding, within blue flower garland cartouches, the corners with foliage scrolls, gilt line rim, mounted on a gadrooned gilt-metal foot, the interior fitted with a detachable green-painted tole shrub mounted with porcelain flowers (wear to rim, further minute wear, footrim with slight chipping and two small firing cracks, tole shrub distressed, chipping to flowers)
Jardinière 8 9/16 in. (21.8 cm.) high; approximately 21¾ in. (55.5 cm.) high overall

Provenance

Anon., sale Sotheby's London, 28th November 1967, lot 139
Anon., sale Sotheby's London, 5th March 1985, lot 117.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

See Geoffrey de Bellaigue and Svend Eriksen, Sèvres Porcelain (London, 1987), p. 318 for a similar example in the collection of Lady Jane Abdy (also with date letter F), and a discussion of the form, which does not appear in the stock-lists or sales-ledgers until early 1759. They point out the rarity of this form, which was probably the only type of jardinière made at Sèvres which had handles. The form could correspond with the two 'large handled (porcelain) boxes for shrubs' recorded in the probate inventory of Madame de Pompadour's posessions made after her death in 1764; they were described as 'Deux grandes caisses à anses, pour mettre des arbustes'. Madame de Pompadour was fond of porcelain flowers, and the creation of her Winter Garden at Bellevue, with scented porcelain flowers, caused a scandal, as the cost was so prodigeous (Louis XV paid 800,000 livres).

Another similar jardinière, without the tole shrub with porcelain flowers, was sold by Sotheby's London on 20th June 2000, lot 80. A similar pair (without the shrubs) from the Rosebery Collection was sold by Sotheby's on 21st April 1964, lot 48.

Jacques-François Micaud père, a long-serving painter of flowers and patterns, was active at Sèvres from 1757 to 1810.

More from British and Continental Ceramics

View All