Lot Essay
For an extensive discussion of such sièges d'aisance and a list of all the ways in which they were described at the time see Nicole de Reyniès, Inventaire Général des Monuments et des Richesses Artistiques de la France (1987), vol. II, pp. 677-678.
The example in the Museé des Beaux-Arts, Rouen illustrated fig. 2464 though of similar form, lacks the rich blue ground of the present example, and has different feet. Another example is in the Louvre, no. OA 3829; this has similar feet and a faience door decorated with a vase of flowers and a shell handle. The polychrome decoration on the present lot, which is evidence of an extraordinary technical mastery, would seem to date from a very brief period in the late 1730's.
Such a magnificent treatment of an intimate domestic object must indicate an important patron.
The example in the Museé des Beaux-Arts, Rouen illustrated fig. 2464 though of similar form, lacks the rich blue ground of the present example, and has different feet. Another example is in the Louvre, no. OA 3829; this has similar feet and a faience door decorated with a vase of flowers and a shell handle. The polychrome decoration on the present lot, which is evidence of an extraordinary technical mastery, would seem to date from a very brief period in the late 1730's.
Such a magnificent treatment of an intimate domestic object must indicate an important patron.