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COLLECTION PARTICULIÈRE FRANÇAISE
GOBELET À BANDEAU DE LA LAITERIE DE MARIE-ANTOINETTE À RAMBOUILLET EN PORCELAINE DURE
MANUFACTURE ROYALE DE SÈVRES, 1787
Details
GOBELET À BANDEAU DE LA LAITERIE DE MARIE-ANTOINETTE À RAMBOUILLET EN PORCELAINE DURE
MANUFACTURE ROYALE DE SÈVRES, 1787
À deux anses, sur piédouche, à décor polychrome d’une chèvre sur une face et d’un mouton sur l’autre, de touffes de roseaux sous les anses et d’ornements noirs sur le fond violet pâle, le bord supérieur est souligné d’une frise de feuillage sous arcatures, la partie inférieure de palmettes et arcades, les anses à fond violet pâle ornées de bagues noires ; la soucoupe manquante.
H. 7,8 cm. (3 1⁄8 in.)
Marqué en bleu sous la base : LL entrelacés et couronnés, lettre-date KK pour 1787, marque du peintre Jean-Pierre Fumez et marque incisée ma probablement pour Marcou
MANUFACTURE ROYALE DE SÈVRES, 1787
À deux anses, sur piédouche, à décor polychrome d’une chèvre sur une face et d’un mouton sur l’autre, de touffes de roseaux sous les anses et d’ornements noirs sur le fond violet pâle, le bord supérieur est souligné d’une frise de feuillage sous arcatures, la partie inférieure de palmettes et arcades, les anses à fond violet pâle ornées de bagues noires ; la soucoupe manquante.
H. 7,8 cm. (3 1⁄8 in.)
Marqué en bleu sous la base : LL entrelacés et couronnés, lettre-date KK pour 1787, marque du peintre Jean-Pierre Fumez et marque incisée ma probablement pour Marcou
Provenance
Livré au château de Rambouillet pour la Laiterie de Marie-Antoinette, 1787 ou 1788.
Collection particulière, France.
Collection particulière, France.
Literature
Bibliographie comparative :
S. Schwartz, 'The Sèvres Porcelain for Marie-Antoinette’s Dairy at Rambouillet: An Exercise in Archaeological Neo-Classicism', in. The French Porcelain Society, IX, 1992.
S. Schwartz, The Sèvres Porcelain for the Rambouillet Dairy in Context, mémoire de Master of Arts in the History of Decorative Arts, The Cooper-Hewitt Museum - Parsons School of Design, New York, mai 1993.
A. Heitzmann, 'La laiterie de Rambouillet', in. Versalia, n° 10, 2007, pp. 46-57.
S. Schwartz, 'Un “air d’Antiquité”. Le service de Sèvres réalisé pour la laiterie de Marie-Antoinette à Rambouillet', in. Versalia, n° 10, 2007, pp. 154-181.
R. Serrette, S. Schwartz, Vivre à l'antique de Marie-Antoinette à Napoléon Ier, cat. exp., Château de Rambouillet, 2021.
S. Schwartz, Brittle Beauty, Reflections on 18thcentury European Porcelain, 2023, n° 79, pp. 506-513.
S. Schwartz, 'The Sèvres Porcelain for Marie-Antoinette’s Dairy at Rambouillet: An Exercise in Archaeological Neo-Classicism', in. The French Porcelain Society, IX, 1992.
S. Schwartz, The Sèvres Porcelain for the Rambouillet Dairy in Context, mémoire de Master of Arts in the History of Decorative Arts, The Cooper-Hewitt Museum - Parsons School of Design, New York, mai 1993.
A. Heitzmann, 'La laiterie de Rambouillet', in. Versalia, n° 10, 2007, pp. 46-57.
S. Schwartz, 'Un “air d’Antiquité”. Le service de Sèvres réalisé pour la laiterie de Marie-Antoinette à Rambouillet', in. Versalia, n° 10, 2007, pp. 154-181.
R. Serrette, S. Schwartz, Vivre à l'antique de Marie-Antoinette à Napoléon Ier, cat. exp., Château de Rambouillet, 2021.
S. Schwartz, Brittle Beauty, Reflections on 18thcentury European Porcelain, 2023, n° 79, pp. 506-513.
Further Details
A SEVRES PORCELAIN CUP (GOBELET À BANDEAU) FROM MARIE-ANTOINETTE’S DAIRY AT RAMBOUILLET, 1787
This cup belongs to one of the most distinctive and innovative services produced by the Royal Manufactory of Sèvres at the end of the Ancien Régime. Only eight gobelets à bandeau were delivered to Rambouillet, in 1787 and 1788, and just two examples, including the present one, have now been identified.
Its Antique-inspired shape and animal decoration bring together the two principal sources of inspiration behind this royal commission: a learned evocation of Antiquity and the pastoral world of a pavilion devoted to the enjoyment of dairy products.
The extensive research conducted by Selma Schwartz, first published in 1992, has notably clarified the genesis of the ensemble, the two deliveries made on 25 May 1787 and 15 May 1788, and the fate of part of the service after the Revolution.
THE DAIRY AT RAMBOUILLET
Louis XVI acquired the Rambouillet domain from the Duc de Penthièvre in December 1783. There he found a privileged hunting domain, sufficiently close to Versailles to allow frequent visits. A dairy was established near the Anglo-Chinese garden. According to a tradition reported, albeit cautiously, by Selma Schwartz, Louis XVI conceived the project to encourage Marie-Antoinette to spend more time at a domain she was reputed not to favour. The undertaking was overseen by the Comte d'Angiviller, Director-General of the King's Buildings, Governor of Rambouillet, and supervisor of the Sèvres manufactory from 1779 onwards. Hubert Robert was involved in the landscaping of the gardens and appears to have coordinated the artistic programme of the dairy. Jacques-Jean Thévenin was responsible for its construction, Pierre Julien for the sculpture, and Georges Jacob for the furniture executed after Robert's designs. The architecture and furnishings of the dairy were deeply indebted to Antiquity, drawing inspiration from interior decorations and objects discovered during the excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii.
The dairy belongs to the vogue for garden pavilions and rural retreats that flourished during the second half of the 18th century. An ornamental dairy was then a fashionable social setting where guests enjoyed milk, cream, fresh cheeses, and iced preparations. The great dairies of the period each possessed their own service: at Chantilly, the Prince de Condé owned a service of 148 porcelain and faience pieces bearing his arms; the Duc d'Orléans purchased a Wedgwood cane-ware service; the dairy of the Hameau de Trianon received a service commissioned in 1786 from the porcelain manufactory of the Rue Thiroux; and the financier Boutin served dairy products in gold tableware. The Rambouillet Dairy Service is the only dairy service produced by the Royal Manufactory of Sèvres in the 18th century and the first conceived in the archaeological style (S. Schwartz, 1993, chap. 1; S. Schwartz, 2007, p. 155).
The sequence of a domed rotunda followed by a room terminating in an artificial grotto created a transition from ordered architecture to an idealised vision of nature. Julien's sculptures, the marbles, Jacob's furniture, and the porcelain service formed part of a unified decorative programme. The nourishing animals represented in the sculptures found echoes in the painted decoration and sculptural elements of the porcelain pieces displayed on the surrounding shelves, within the niches, and on the central table of the rotunda. The central table was originally a solid mahogany round table supplied by Georges Jacob on 1 March 1787 (its base is now preserved at the Château de Pau), accompanied by four gueridons and seats of a "new Etruscan style." The present marble table dates from the restoration of 1807. In the rotunda, Pierre Julien's medallions depicting The Milking of the Cow, The Churning of Milk, The Shearing of Sheep, and The Distribution of Salt to Goats (Musée du Louvre, RF 4703-4706) feature the same domesticated animals that appear on the porcelain service.
The first delivery of the service, on 25 May 1787, preceded the arrival of Jacob's furniture by only a few days, on 29 May. The King, who hunted at Rambouillet twice a week from May to August, saw the dairy in early June. Indeed, on 9 June, Julien thanked d'Angiviller for the success of his sculptures. A court visit planned for 15 June, which may have served as the inauguration, was cancelled, and no document records any formal opening ceremony. The only subsequent visit by the Queen noted in Louis XVI's journal occurred on 26 June ("Élisabeth hunted, the Queen supped"), without any mention of the dairy. In July, Jacob adjusted the height of the seats, and on 8 August d'Angiviller informed Julien that he had received "the praises of the King and the approval of the entire Court" (S. Schwartz, 1993, chap. 2; S. Schwartz, 2007, pp. 157-158).
THE ETRUSCAN TASTE AT THE SÈVRES MANUFACTORY
The Rambouillet porcelain service represents the culmination of the transformation introduced at the Sèvres manufactory by d'Angiviller after his appointment in 1779. In March 1785, he appointed Jean-Jacques Lagrenée as co-artistic director alongside Jean-Jacques Bachelier, who was already serving in that role.
The presence at Sèvres of the collection assembled in Naples by Dominique-Vivant Denon proved decisive. D'Angiviller negotiated, on behalf of Louis XVI, the purchase of 525 ancient vases.
The collection was transferred to the Sèvres manufactory in June 1786. D'Angiviller believed it could be "extremely useful to the manufactory for shapes." Thanks to this acquisition, Sèvres developed new models devoid of gilding, characteristic of the so-called "Etruscan" style. This was the aesthetic adopted for the Rambouillet service. The forms were developed under the direction of Louis-Simon Boizot, probably supervised by Hubert Robert, while Jean-Jacques Lagrenée the Younger bore primary responsibility for the decorative designs.
The absence of gilding was a particularly significant choice. As early as 1785, Jean-Jacques Hettlinger, who oversaw hard-paste porcelain production, advocated the combination of antique forms and decoration without gold. At Rambouillet, black or carmine lines replaced the customary gilded enrichments. The colour palette was varied: alongside grès and étrusque grounds were petit bleu, gris de lin, jonquille, verd anglais, pale violet, and Dauphine ground.
MANUFACTURE AND COMPOSITION OF THE SERVICE
Development of the forms began in November 1786. Most of the work was carried out between December 1786 and May 1787, with some activity continuing until the end of 1787. Approximately two-thirds of the workers in the hard-paste workshop contributed to the project. The quantities produced significantly exceeded the needs of Rambouillet.
The project evolved during execution. The delivery of 25 May 1787 included unfinished elements that were subsequently returned to Sèvres. The second delivery, on 15 May 1788, completed the ensemble and included several substitutions. The final composition, received by Deshayes, concierge of the Rambouillet Garde-Meuble, comprised sixty-five pieces.
A plan of the Dairy preserved in the archives of the Sèvres manufactory records the arrangement of the porcelains. A large low tureen occupied the central table together with six cups and saucers of two different shapes. The churns, tureens, milk pots, sugar bowls, cups, and breast-shaped bowls were arranged on the surrounding shelves, while the six vases occupied the niches.
THE GOBELET À BANDEAU
The present gobelet à bandeau corresponds to item "h" in the "Note et Profile des pièces de la Laiterie du Roy à Rambouillet." Contemporary documents describe it as a "gobelet à bandeau," "à bordure," or "à anses à rouleaux." The 1814 model inventory attributes the plaster shape to Boizot. Selma Schwartz identifies it as a combination of the body of a Greek skyphos and the contrasting rim of a kylix. The handles, formed of two S-shaped elements joined by a horizontal rod, were an invention of the Sèvres manufactory. The register of the hard-paste workshop first records "gobelets de la laiterie anses à rouleaux" in January 1787 and later "gobelets de la laiterie à bordure" in May 1787 (S. Schwartz, 1993, chap. 4).
Three other cup models were created for the service: the gobelet à anses relevées, also known as the forme crachoire; the gobelet à anses étrusques or anses botte; and the gobelet forme cornet. According to the delivery records analysed by Selma Schwartz, six gobelets à bandeau were delivered in 1787 and two more in 1788, for a total of eight. The first six were divided into three pairs: two with étrusque ground, two with pale violet ground, and two with Dauphine ground. The receipt dated 15 May 1788 records four gobelets à bandeau with saucers intended for the perimeter shelves of the room. According to Schwartz's reconstruction, four additional examples were placed among the six cups and saucers of two forms displayed on the central table, while the remaining two were examples with Etruscan handles. Only one other gobelet à bandeau, likewise with pale violet ground, is currently known and published (PIASA sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 23 June 2000, lot 20). The Sèvres Museum preserves a gobelet cornet with violet ground, also painted by Fumez, and an Etruscan cup with jonquille ground, both acquired at the Guillain sale in 1870. An Etruscan cup with pale blue or verd anglais ground is preserved in the Didier Cramoisan Collection (see Marie-Antoinette, Paris, 2008, no. 166f, p. 240).
Jean-Pierre Fumez was among the painters paid in 1787 for "ouvrages à la laiterie" (Archives MNS, painters' register, Vj 4, f. 136v: 198 livres). Piecework accounts also record a payment of 36 livres to Fumez in May 1787 for "2 tasses de la Laiterie." The gobelet cornet preserved at Sèvres likewise bears his mark. The incised mark ma most likely refers to Marcou, a third-class repairer in the hard-paste workshop, paid 27 livres per month (30 in 1788), who worked in 1787 on Rambouillet vases, cups, and bowls. He is also specifically recorded for work on "gobelets de la laiterie anses à rouleaux," that is, precisely the form represented by the present cup.
DISPERSAL OF THE SERVICE AND PROVENANCE
On 1 September 1793, the Commission des Monuments, charged with selecting works of art for the future Museum (musée du Louvre), recorded in a report the elements of the service still remaining at Rambouillet. The commissioners noted that the furniture and porcelains had been transferred to a room in the château. Their report mentions the presence of "six large porcelain vases, Etruscan in form, with their stands, and two others in the shape of buckets, five tripod bowls, eight ewer-shaped vases of Etruscan form, and eight handled cups of Etruscan form" (Archives nationales F17 1263; published by Louis Tuetey, Procès-verbaux de la Commission des Monuments, 1902; cited by S. Schwartz, 1993, appendix A). The cups and sugar bowls were no longer at Rambouillet by 1793.
In September 1803, in response to the wishes of Joséphine de Beauharnais, the Minister of the Interior instructed Dominique Vivant Denon, Director of the Musée Central des Arts, to transfer to Malmaison the Dairy porcelains still at Rambouillet together with those previously sent to the reserve collections of the Versailles museum. Five large vases, two large buckets, one large bowl without tripod stand, and three pedestals came from Rambouillet, while one large vase and four bowls, one with its tripod stand, came from Versailles. The eight milk pots and eight bowls had disappeared by 1793 (S. Schwartz, 2007, p. 176).
Approximately twenty pieces of the Dairy Service have now been identified out of the sixty-five originally delivered. Among the published examples are:
- The pair of milk buckets (formerly Mayer Amschel de Rothschild Collection, Mentmore; Sotheby Parke Bernet, 24 May 1977, lots 2079-2080);
- The large low tureen (Frankfurt, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, inv. 9717);
- A jatte écuelle with petit bleu ground (New York, Metropolitan Museum, no. 1997.518);
- An Etruscan-handled cup and saucer with jonquille ground (Sèvres Museum, MNC 6796);
- A gobelet cornet with gris de lin ground (Sèvres Museum, MNC 6795);
- A saucer from a gobelet à anses relevées with jonquille ground (Sèvres Museum, MNC 6795);
- Two breast-shaped bowls with pale blue and violet grounds (Sèvres Museum, MNC 23399-23400, acquired 1970);
- A breast-shaped bowl with pale blue ground (Naples, Museo Duca di Martina);
- A gobelet à bandeau and saucer with pale violet ground (PIASA, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 23 June 2000, lot 20);
- An Etruscan-handled cup and saucer with verd anglais ground (Didier Cramoisan Collection, published in Marie-Antoinette, Grand Palais, Paris, 2008, no. 166f, p. 240);
- A saucer from a gobelet à bandeau with étrusque ground (Rouillac, Cheverny, 10 June 2007, lot 144);
- A milk pot with goat-head handles and étrusque ground (Aguttes, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 11 February 2011);
- Two further milk pots with goat-head handles and étrusque ground (cited by Selma Schwartz, 1993);
- A milk bowl with Etruscan handles and étrusque ground (Thierry de Maigret, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 18 November 2015, lot 56);
- The foot of a large tureen with grès ground (S. Schwartz, Brittle Beauty: Reflections on 18th-Century European Porcelain, 2023, no. 79, pp. 506-513);
- A milk pot with raised handle and violet ground (acquired by the Sèvres Museum in 2025);
- A round sugar bowl with violet ground (acquired by the Sèvres Museum in 2025);
- The present cup with pale violet ground.
This cup belongs to one of the most distinctive and innovative services produced by the Royal Manufactory of Sèvres at the end of the Ancien Régime. Only eight gobelets à bandeau were delivered to Rambouillet, in 1787 and 1788, and just two examples, including the present one, have now been identified.
Its Antique-inspired shape and animal decoration bring together the two principal sources of inspiration behind this royal commission: a learned evocation of Antiquity and the pastoral world of a pavilion devoted to the enjoyment of dairy products.
The extensive research conducted by Selma Schwartz, first published in 1992, has notably clarified the genesis of the ensemble, the two deliveries made on 25 May 1787 and 15 May 1788, and the fate of part of the service after the Revolution.
THE DAIRY AT RAMBOUILLET
Louis XVI acquired the Rambouillet domain from the Duc de Penthièvre in December 1783. There he found a privileged hunting domain, sufficiently close to Versailles to allow frequent visits. A dairy was established near the Anglo-Chinese garden. According to a tradition reported, albeit cautiously, by Selma Schwartz, Louis XVI conceived the project to encourage Marie-Antoinette to spend more time at a domain she was reputed not to favour. The undertaking was overseen by the Comte d'Angiviller, Director-General of the King's Buildings, Governor of Rambouillet, and supervisor of the Sèvres manufactory from 1779 onwards. Hubert Robert was involved in the landscaping of the gardens and appears to have coordinated the artistic programme of the dairy. Jacques-Jean Thévenin was responsible for its construction, Pierre Julien for the sculpture, and Georges Jacob for the furniture executed after Robert's designs. The architecture and furnishings of the dairy were deeply indebted to Antiquity, drawing inspiration from interior decorations and objects discovered during the excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii.
The dairy belongs to the vogue for garden pavilions and rural retreats that flourished during the second half of the 18th century. An ornamental dairy was then a fashionable social setting where guests enjoyed milk, cream, fresh cheeses, and iced preparations. The great dairies of the period each possessed their own service: at Chantilly, the Prince de Condé owned a service of 148 porcelain and faience pieces bearing his arms; the Duc d'Orléans purchased a Wedgwood cane-ware service; the dairy of the Hameau de Trianon received a service commissioned in 1786 from the porcelain manufactory of the Rue Thiroux; and the financier Boutin served dairy products in gold tableware. The Rambouillet Dairy Service is the only dairy service produced by the Royal Manufactory of Sèvres in the 18th century and the first conceived in the archaeological style (S. Schwartz, 1993, chap. 1; S. Schwartz, 2007, p. 155).
The sequence of a domed rotunda followed by a room terminating in an artificial grotto created a transition from ordered architecture to an idealised vision of nature. Julien's sculptures, the marbles, Jacob's furniture, and the porcelain service formed part of a unified decorative programme. The nourishing animals represented in the sculptures found echoes in the painted decoration and sculptural elements of the porcelain pieces displayed on the surrounding shelves, within the niches, and on the central table of the rotunda. The central table was originally a solid mahogany round table supplied by Georges Jacob on 1 March 1787 (its base is now preserved at the Château de Pau), accompanied by four gueridons and seats of a "new Etruscan style." The present marble table dates from the restoration of 1807. In the rotunda, Pierre Julien's medallions depicting The Milking of the Cow, The Churning of Milk, The Shearing of Sheep, and The Distribution of Salt to Goats (Musée du Louvre, RF 4703-4706) feature the same domesticated animals that appear on the porcelain service.
The first delivery of the service, on 25 May 1787, preceded the arrival of Jacob's furniture by only a few days, on 29 May. The King, who hunted at Rambouillet twice a week from May to August, saw the dairy in early June. Indeed, on 9 June, Julien thanked d'Angiviller for the success of his sculptures. A court visit planned for 15 June, which may have served as the inauguration, was cancelled, and no document records any formal opening ceremony. The only subsequent visit by the Queen noted in Louis XVI's journal occurred on 26 June ("Élisabeth hunted, the Queen supped"), without any mention of the dairy. In July, Jacob adjusted the height of the seats, and on 8 August d'Angiviller informed Julien that he had received "the praises of the King and the approval of the entire Court" (S. Schwartz, 1993, chap. 2; S. Schwartz, 2007, pp. 157-158).
THE ETRUSCAN TASTE AT THE SÈVRES MANUFACTORY
The Rambouillet porcelain service represents the culmination of the transformation introduced at the Sèvres manufactory by d'Angiviller after his appointment in 1779. In March 1785, he appointed Jean-Jacques Lagrenée as co-artistic director alongside Jean-Jacques Bachelier, who was already serving in that role.
The presence at Sèvres of the collection assembled in Naples by Dominique-Vivant Denon proved decisive. D'Angiviller negotiated, on behalf of Louis XVI, the purchase of 525 ancient vases.
The collection was transferred to the Sèvres manufactory in June 1786. D'Angiviller believed it could be "extremely useful to the manufactory for shapes." Thanks to this acquisition, Sèvres developed new models devoid of gilding, characteristic of the so-called "Etruscan" style. This was the aesthetic adopted for the Rambouillet service. The forms were developed under the direction of Louis-Simon Boizot, probably supervised by Hubert Robert, while Jean-Jacques Lagrenée the Younger bore primary responsibility for the decorative designs.
The absence of gilding was a particularly significant choice. As early as 1785, Jean-Jacques Hettlinger, who oversaw hard-paste porcelain production, advocated the combination of antique forms and decoration without gold. At Rambouillet, black or carmine lines replaced the customary gilded enrichments. The colour palette was varied: alongside grès and étrusque grounds were petit bleu, gris de lin, jonquille, verd anglais, pale violet, and Dauphine ground.
MANUFACTURE AND COMPOSITION OF THE SERVICE
Development of the forms began in November 1786. Most of the work was carried out between December 1786 and May 1787, with some activity continuing until the end of 1787. Approximately two-thirds of the workers in the hard-paste workshop contributed to the project. The quantities produced significantly exceeded the needs of Rambouillet.
The project evolved during execution. The delivery of 25 May 1787 included unfinished elements that were subsequently returned to Sèvres. The second delivery, on 15 May 1788, completed the ensemble and included several substitutions. The final composition, received by Deshayes, concierge of the Rambouillet Garde-Meuble, comprised sixty-five pieces.
A plan of the Dairy preserved in the archives of the Sèvres manufactory records the arrangement of the porcelains. A large low tureen occupied the central table together with six cups and saucers of two different shapes. The churns, tureens, milk pots, sugar bowls, cups, and breast-shaped bowls were arranged on the surrounding shelves, while the six vases occupied the niches.
THE GOBELET À BANDEAU
The present gobelet à bandeau corresponds to item "h" in the "Note et Profile des pièces de la Laiterie du Roy à Rambouillet." Contemporary documents describe it as a "gobelet à bandeau," "à bordure," or "à anses à rouleaux." The 1814 model inventory attributes the plaster shape to Boizot. Selma Schwartz identifies it as a combination of the body of a Greek skyphos and the contrasting rim of a kylix. The handles, formed of two S-shaped elements joined by a horizontal rod, were an invention of the Sèvres manufactory. The register of the hard-paste workshop first records "gobelets de la laiterie anses à rouleaux" in January 1787 and later "gobelets de la laiterie à bordure" in May 1787 (S. Schwartz, 1993, chap. 4).
Three other cup models were created for the service: the gobelet à anses relevées, also known as the forme crachoire; the gobelet à anses étrusques or anses botte; and the gobelet forme cornet. According to the delivery records analysed by Selma Schwartz, six gobelets à bandeau were delivered in 1787 and two more in 1788, for a total of eight. The first six were divided into three pairs: two with étrusque ground, two with pale violet ground, and two with Dauphine ground. The receipt dated 15 May 1788 records four gobelets à bandeau with saucers intended for the perimeter shelves of the room. According to Schwartz's reconstruction, four additional examples were placed among the six cups and saucers of two forms displayed on the central table, while the remaining two were examples with Etruscan handles. Only one other gobelet à bandeau, likewise with pale violet ground, is currently known and published (PIASA sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 23 June 2000, lot 20). The Sèvres Museum preserves a gobelet cornet with violet ground, also painted by Fumez, and an Etruscan cup with jonquille ground, both acquired at the Guillain sale in 1870. An Etruscan cup with pale blue or verd anglais ground is preserved in the Didier Cramoisan Collection (see Marie-Antoinette, Paris, 2008, no. 166f, p. 240).
Jean-Pierre Fumez was among the painters paid in 1787 for "ouvrages à la laiterie" (Archives MNS, painters' register, Vj 4, f. 136v: 198 livres). Piecework accounts also record a payment of 36 livres to Fumez in May 1787 for "2 tasses de la Laiterie." The gobelet cornet preserved at Sèvres likewise bears his mark. The incised mark ma most likely refers to Marcou, a third-class repairer in the hard-paste workshop, paid 27 livres per month (30 in 1788), who worked in 1787 on Rambouillet vases, cups, and bowls. He is also specifically recorded for work on "gobelets de la laiterie anses à rouleaux," that is, precisely the form represented by the present cup.
DISPERSAL OF THE SERVICE AND PROVENANCE
On 1 September 1793, the Commission des Monuments, charged with selecting works of art for the future Museum (musée du Louvre), recorded in a report the elements of the service still remaining at Rambouillet. The commissioners noted that the furniture and porcelains had been transferred to a room in the château. Their report mentions the presence of "six large porcelain vases, Etruscan in form, with their stands, and two others in the shape of buckets, five tripod bowls, eight ewer-shaped vases of Etruscan form, and eight handled cups of Etruscan form" (Archives nationales F17 1263; published by Louis Tuetey, Procès-verbaux de la Commission des Monuments, 1902; cited by S. Schwartz, 1993, appendix A). The cups and sugar bowls were no longer at Rambouillet by 1793.
In September 1803, in response to the wishes of Joséphine de Beauharnais, the Minister of the Interior instructed Dominique Vivant Denon, Director of the Musée Central des Arts, to transfer to Malmaison the Dairy porcelains still at Rambouillet together with those previously sent to the reserve collections of the Versailles museum. Five large vases, two large buckets, one large bowl without tripod stand, and three pedestals came from Rambouillet, while one large vase and four bowls, one with its tripod stand, came from Versailles. The eight milk pots and eight bowls had disappeared by 1793 (S. Schwartz, 2007, p. 176).
Approximately twenty pieces of the Dairy Service have now been identified out of the sixty-five originally delivered. Among the published examples are:
- The pair of milk buckets (formerly Mayer Amschel de Rothschild Collection, Mentmore; Sotheby Parke Bernet, 24 May 1977, lots 2079-2080);
- The large low tureen (Frankfurt, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, inv. 9717);
- A jatte écuelle with petit bleu ground (New York, Metropolitan Museum, no. 1997.518);
- An Etruscan-handled cup and saucer with jonquille ground (Sèvres Museum, MNC 6796);
- A gobelet cornet with gris de lin ground (Sèvres Museum, MNC 6795);
- A saucer from a gobelet à anses relevées with jonquille ground (Sèvres Museum, MNC 6795);
- Two breast-shaped bowls with pale blue and violet grounds (Sèvres Museum, MNC 23399-23400, acquired 1970);
- A breast-shaped bowl with pale blue ground (Naples, Museo Duca di Martina);
- A gobelet à bandeau and saucer with pale violet ground (PIASA, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 23 June 2000, lot 20);
- An Etruscan-handled cup and saucer with verd anglais ground (Didier Cramoisan Collection, published in Marie-Antoinette, Grand Palais, Paris, 2008, no. 166f, p. 240);
- A saucer from a gobelet à bandeau with étrusque ground (Rouillac, Cheverny, 10 June 2007, lot 144);
- A milk pot with goat-head handles and étrusque ground (Aguttes, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 11 February 2011);
- Two further milk pots with goat-head handles and étrusque ground (cited by Selma Schwartz, 1993);
- A milk bowl with Etruscan handles and étrusque ground (Thierry de Maigret, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 18 November 2015, lot 56);
- The foot of a large tureen with grès ground (S. Schwartz, Brittle Beauty: Reflections on 18th-Century European Porcelain, 2023, no. 79, pp. 506-513);
- A milk pot with raised handle and violet ground (acquired by the Sèvres Museum in 2025);
- A round sugar bowl with violet ground (acquired by the Sèvres Museum in 2025);
- The present cup with pale violet ground.
Brought to you by
Hippolyte de la Féronnière
Head of European Furniture Department