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Lot Essay
The portrait on the present cup was painted by Etienne-Charles Le Guay after the formal coronation portrait of Empress Marie-Louise painted by Jean-Baptiste Isabey.
The suite of jewels worn by the Empress was designed and executed by the noted firm of Etienne Nitot et Fils, Paris and given to Marie-Louise by Napoleon in celebration of their marriage. Delivered in March 1810, the parure, comprising a diadem, a necklace, a pair of earrings, a comb and a belt clasp, was made up of 138 emeralds, 382 rose-cut diamonds and 2,162 brilliant-cut diamonds. In his portrait, Isabey took poetic license and changed the emeralds to rubies - a replacement repeated in the Le Guay portrait.
A wedding gift from Napoleon to Marie-Louise, the parure descended through her family but was broken up and some of the pieces reworked. The diadem was partially redesigned, with turquoise subsituted for the emeralds. It was purchased from Van Cleef & Arpels by Marjorie Merriweather Post and donated to the Smithsonian Institution where it can be seen today in the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. The necklace and earrings descended through the empress's family, were sold on, but remained virtually untouched. They were recently acquired by the Louvre for the princely sum of 3.7 million euros. The whereabouts of the comb and belt clasp is unknown.
It would appear that two such portrait cups with silver-gilt handles were made at Sèvres in 1811 - one reserved against a green ground and the present example on blue. Overtime records for the painter [Vj'18, p. 142] note a payment of 216 livres in July 1811 for work done in June on a Tasse jas(min) Portrait de L'Imper M Louise. No ground color is noted for this cup. However, in the listing of entries into the saleroom for September 1811 [Vu 1, p. 118v, line 43], the entry for what one can only assume is the same cup is here described as on a green ground: 1 Tasse en forme Jasmin 1ere grandeur fond vert de chrome portrait de S.M. L'Imperatrice peint en miniature d'apres Isabey, anse en vermeille, 492 livres .
To further complicate matters, the part service offered as lot 642 in the present sale includes a mismatched green-ground saucer decorated in the same pattern as that accompanying the present blue-ground cup. It seems likely that this green-ground saucer was made for the cup noted in the saleroom ledger for September 1811.
For a similar cup painted by Le Guay five years later with a portrait of Stephanie de Beauharnais, see Christie's, London, 31 March 2008, lot 241.
The cup incised tt for the repareur garnisseur Charles Thévenot fils aîné (recorded 1787-1826), the saucer incised t in the same hand and likely for the same man.
The suite of jewels worn by the Empress was designed and executed by the noted firm of Etienne Nitot et Fils, Paris and given to Marie-Louise by Napoleon in celebration of their marriage. Delivered in March 1810, the parure, comprising a diadem, a necklace, a pair of earrings, a comb and a belt clasp, was made up of 138 emeralds, 382 rose-cut diamonds and 2,162 brilliant-cut diamonds. In his portrait, Isabey took poetic license and changed the emeralds to rubies - a replacement repeated in the Le Guay portrait.
A wedding gift from Napoleon to Marie-Louise, the parure descended through her family but was broken up and some of the pieces reworked. The diadem was partially redesigned, with turquoise subsituted for the emeralds. It was purchased from Van Cleef & Arpels by Marjorie Merriweather Post and donated to the Smithsonian Institution where it can be seen today in the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. The necklace and earrings descended through the empress's family, were sold on, but remained virtually untouched. They were recently acquired by the Louvre for the princely sum of 3.7 million euros. The whereabouts of the comb and belt clasp is unknown.
It would appear that two such portrait cups with silver-gilt handles were made at Sèvres in 1811 - one reserved against a green ground and the present example on blue. Overtime records for the painter [Vj'18, p. 142] note a payment of 216 livres in July 1811 for work done in June on a Tasse jas(min) Portrait de L'Imper M Louise. No ground color is noted for this cup. However, in the listing of entries into the saleroom for September 1811 [Vu 1, p. 118v, line 43], the entry for what one can only assume is the same cup is here described as on a green ground: 1 Tasse en forme Jasmin 1
To further complicate matters, the part service offered as lot 642 in the present sale includes a mismatched green-ground saucer decorated in the same pattern as that accompanying the present blue-ground cup. It seems likely that this green-ground saucer was made for the cup noted in the saleroom ledger for September 1811.
For a similar cup painted by Le Guay five years later with a portrait of Stephanie de Beauharnais, see Christie's, London, 31 March 2008, lot 241.
The cup incised tt for the repareur garnisseur Charles Thévenot fils aîné (recorded 1787-1826), the saucer incised t in the same hand and likely for the same man.