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Lot Essay
PORCELAINE TRUITTÉE
This elegant garniture comprises a vase and two ewers, whose bodies are a trio of Chinese celadon porcelain vases with a pronounced crackled glaze. This type of porcelain, intended to imitate the famous Southern Ge craquelure, was generally not made for export, but was nonetheless highly prized in the eighteenth century by Parisian marchand-merciers. The crackled surface was admired for its unusual and 'ancient' looking appearance, and was known as 'porcelaine truittée' from a supposed resemblance to the markings on the body of that fish, or 'porcelaine craquelée' when the craquelure was larger and coarser. These wares appear only occasionally in the Livre-Journal of the marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux, which survives for the period 1748-1758.The scarcity of the type was undoubtedly a factor contributing to the great prices paid by collectors: on 17 December 1750, the marquise de Pompadour bought from Duvaux: Deux vases de porcelaine truittée en forme de pot pourri, garnis en bronze doré d'or moulu, 1200l, and seven years later, on 22 April 1757, the duc d'Orleans purchased from Duvaux a group of mounted vases of this same rare porcelain, including a large vase, two large pot-pourris and two bottles, for the considerable sum of 2,960 livres (F. Watson, Mounted Oriental Porcelain, Wisbech, 1986, no. 20, p. 68).
The rarity and considerable cost of this type of porcelain meant that these objects were almost exclusively set in very precious and exuberant ormolu mounts, often according to an innovative design. Particularly admired, and much-copied in the nineteenth century, was a rich scheme of mounts with dragons atop the handles, and spouts cast as shells, such as those listed in the inventory of Gaillard de Gagny in 1759 (The Collection of Edmond and Lily Safra, sold Sotheby's New York, 3-4 November 2005). Preserved in the Musée du Louvre is a pair of ewers and a vase mounted with particularly exuberant rocaille mounts in the 1740s, later assembled as a garniture, although originally mounted by different bronziers (inv. nos. OA 5496 and OA 6053, discussed in D. Alcouffe et al., Gilt Bronzes in the Louvre, Dijon, 2004, cat. nos. 41-42, pp. 91-93).
THE GOÛT À LA GRECQUE
While crackle-glazed porcelain remained consistently prized, the shifts in aesthetic taste over the century are reflected in the diverse styles of mounts applied to crackle vases. The porcelain bodies of the present garniture could easily be mistaken for the those in the Louvre garniture, and yet their mounts reveal a seismic change in taste that took place between the 1740s and 1760s. No longer are the vases framed in the proliferating dragons and C-scrolls of the Rococo taste, but instead with slender and angular loop handles, symmetrical scrolls and simple draping laurels, placing the garniture among the first burst of French Neoclassicism, the boldly innovative goût à la grecque. This short-lived, but prophetic style developed in the 1750s in part as a reaction to the excesses of the rococo and by 1763, had apparently achieved such wide popularity that Baron de Grimm declared, “Tout est à Paris à la grecque” (S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, p. 264).
Mounts of a similar design are known, including to a pair of green Sevres porcelain ewers probably intended to ‘deceive’ their viewers by passing as Chinese, circa 1767, in the collection of Waddesdon Manor (ibid., p. 362, cat. no., 240); to a pair of ewers forming part of a five-piece celadon garniture sold from the collection of George, 5th Earl of Essex, Christie’s, London, 12 May 1893, lot 14; and the mounts to a pair of black tole-painted vases in the chinoiserie taste mounted as ewers, sold Tajan, Paris, 17 December 2002, lot 164 (€598,218).
This elegant garniture comprises a vase and two ewers, whose bodies are a trio of Chinese celadon porcelain vases with a pronounced crackled glaze. This type of porcelain, intended to imitate the famous Southern Ge craquelure, was generally not made for export, but was nonetheless highly prized in the eighteenth century by Parisian marchand-merciers. The crackled surface was admired for its unusual and 'ancient' looking appearance, and was known as 'porcelaine truittée' from a supposed resemblance to the markings on the body of that fish, or 'porcelaine craquelée' when the craquelure was larger and coarser. These wares appear only occasionally in the Livre-Journal of the marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux, which survives for the period 1748-1758.The scarcity of the type was undoubtedly a factor contributing to the great prices paid by collectors: on 17 December 1750, the marquise de Pompadour bought from Duvaux: Deux vases de porcelaine truittée en forme de pot pourri, garnis en bronze doré d'or moulu, 1200l, and seven years later, on 22 April 1757, the duc d'Orleans purchased from Duvaux a group of mounted vases of this same rare porcelain, including a large vase, two large pot-pourris and two bottles, for the considerable sum of 2,960 livres (F. Watson, Mounted Oriental Porcelain, Wisbech, 1986, no. 20, p. 68).
The rarity and considerable cost of this type of porcelain meant that these objects were almost exclusively set in very precious and exuberant ormolu mounts, often according to an innovative design. Particularly admired, and much-copied in the nineteenth century, was a rich scheme of mounts with dragons atop the handles, and spouts cast as shells, such as those listed in the inventory of Gaillard de Gagny in 1759 (The Collection of Edmond and Lily Safra, sold Sotheby's New York, 3-4 November 2005). Preserved in the Musée du Louvre is a pair of ewers and a vase mounted with particularly exuberant rocaille mounts in the 1740s, later assembled as a garniture, although originally mounted by different bronziers (inv. nos. OA 5496 and OA 6053, discussed in D. Alcouffe et al., Gilt Bronzes in the Louvre, Dijon, 2004, cat. nos. 41-42, pp. 91-93).
THE GOÛT À LA GRECQUE
While crackle-glazed porcelain remained consistently prized, the shifts in aesthetic taste over the century are reflected in the diverse styles of mounts applied to crackle vases. The porcelain bodies of the present garniture could easily be mistaken for the those in the Louvre garniture, and yet their mounts reveal a seismic change in taste that took place between the 1740s and 1760s. No longer are the vases framed in the proliferating dragons and C-scrolls of the Rococo taste, but instead with slender and angular loop handles, symmetrical scrolls and simple draping laurels, placing the garniture among the first burst of French Neoclassicism, the boldly innovative goût à la grecque. This short-lived, but prophetic style developed in the 1750s in part as a reaction to the excesses of the rococo and by 1763, had apparently achieved such wide popularity that Baron de Grimm declared, “Tout est à Paris à la grecque” (S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, p. 264).
Mounts of a similar design are known, including to a pair of green Sevres porcelain ewers probably intended to ‘deceive’ their viewers by passing as Chinese, circa 1767, in the collection of Waddesdon Manor (ibid., p. 362, cat. no., 240); to a pair of ewers forming part of a five-piece celadon garniture sold from the collection of George, 5th Earl of Essex, Christie’s, London, 12 May 1893, lot 14; and the mounts to a pair of black tole-painted vases in the chinoiserie taste mounted as ewers, sold Tajan, Paris, 17 December 2002, lot 164 (€598,218).