TWELVE SEVRES BLEU CELESTE ORNITHOLOGICAL PLATES (ASSIETE 'A PALMES')

BLUE INTERLACED L'S ENCLOSING DATE LETTER P FOR 1768 AND PAINTER'S MARKS FOR ALONCLE, CHAPUIS L'AN AND EVANS, INCISED (ENTWINED C'S TO FORM AN X) OR CT

Details
TWELVE SEVRES BLEU CELESTE ORNITHOLOGICAL PLATES (ASSIETE 'A PALMES')
Blue interlaced L's enclosing date letter P for 1768 and painter's marks for Aloncle, Chapuis l'an and Evans, incised (entwined c's to form an x) or CT
The centers with exotic specimen birds in landscapes named in French on the underside, the turquoise blue border reserved with three shaped floral cartouches joined by gilt husks and moulded and gilt C-scrolls
9.5/8in. (24.4cm.) diameter
Aloncle, Franois-Joseph
Chappuis, Antoine-Joseph
Evans, Etienne (12)
Provenance
Anon. sale; Sotheby's & Co., London, 7 July 1970, lot 62 (#760 to Winifred Williams)
Sir John Plumb F.B.A., no. 83
Sale room notice
ADDED PROVENANCE
The Chrmteff Collection

EXHIBITED
London, Westheimer Gallery, New Bond Street, circa 1906

LITERATURE
Notes on the historic Chrmteff collection of old turquoise Svres porcelain, on view at the galleries of Mr. Asher Wertheimer, 158 New Bond Street, London, n.d.
"The Chrmteff Svres Porcelain", The Connoisseur, XV, August 1906, pp. 243-448
Georges Bal, Historique et description d'un service de table en ancienne porcelaine de Svres, pte tendre, 1767-1771, Paris, 1916, the present plate painted with the Piegrieche de D'anemarc, one of fifteen listed as in the collection, illustrated along with another on pp. 32-33

The Chrmteff family were at the height of their power and influence during the reign of Catherine the Great. Members held high office in the army, navy and diplomatic corps. It is likely that the service to which the present twelve plates belong was a gift of the French government.

Lot Essay

The ornithological subjects on the present plates appear to have been taken from George Edwards, A Natural History of Uncommon Birds first published in France as Histoire naturelle des divers oiseaux in 1745 and 1748.

A single plate painted by Franois Aloncle with a Moucherole du Cap franois and from the same service as the present twelve plates is in The Wrightsman Collection (C.C. Dauterman, The Wrightsman Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1970, vol. IV, nos. 104.) Two further plates were in the collection formed by Nelson A. Rockefeller and offered for the benefit of his estate, Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc., New York, 11 April 1980, lot 242.

See also Svend Eriksen, James A. De Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, Svres Porcelain, Fribourg, 1968, pp. 206-227 for a discussion of the Razoumovski Service and Ghenete Zelleke, French Porcelain and the Dukes of Richmond, French Porcelain Society, vol. VII, 1991 for a discussion of the ornithological plates at Goodwood and the Edwards engravings related to them, both of which are bleu celeste ornithological services related to the present plates.
The following is a list of painter's whose marks appear on the present plates followed by the names of the birds represented.

Franois-Joseph Aloncle (1758-1781): Manakin, La Pie des indes, Bonana Minor de la jamaque, Pigeoin de la chine, Peroquet, verdriez de Surinam

Antoine-Joseph Chappuis (1761-1787): Le touralo, Piegrieche de D'anemarc, La moucherole des environs de Londres, La Bergeronette D'amerique

Etienne Evans (1752-1786): Legai bleu de l'amerique, Le toucan a gorge jeaune

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