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Lot Essay
The present cup and saucer originally formed part of a grand déjeuner 'Hébert' comprising a teapot, cream-jug, sugar-bowl and four cups and saucers. The tray, a plateau 'Hébert' à anses, 1ere grandeur, is in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum, a gift in 1917 of J.P. Morgan. The teapot and a cup and saucer are now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (as a loan by R. Thornton Wilson in 1976 and a bequest in 1983). A cup and saucer from the same New England Collection as the present example was sold by Christie's, New York, 5 May 1999 as lot 37. Both it and the cream-jug were previously in the collection of René Fribourg and were sold by Sotheby & Co., London on 15 October 1963 as lots 449 and 448 respectively. The current whereabouts of the cream-jug and the fourth cup and saucer are unknown.
The combination of pink and green ground colours is found on Sèvres porcelain dating 1759-1761. The factory records note the sale of cups and saucers with such decoration between 1760 and mid-1761 to the dealers Bachelier, Mme Lair, Machart, Poirier and Tesnieres. A pink and green déjeuner is listed as having been sold to Dulac for 528 livres in the second quarter of 1761. It is possible that this entry refers to the service to which the present cup and saucer originally belonged. However, it is equally possible that the déjeuner in question is that sold to Louis XV at Versailles in December 1760.
See Linda H. Roth and Clare Le Corbeiller, French Eighteenth-Century Porcelain at the Wadsworth Atheneum: The J. Pierpont Morgan Collection, Hartford, 2000, cat. no. 86 for a complete discussion of the museum's tray and the probable provenance of the service as recorded in the Sèvres archives. See also Adrian Sassoon, Vincennes and Sèvres Porcelain, Catalogue of the Collections, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, CA, 1991, no. 8, pp. 39-41.
Louis-Denis Armand, recorded at Vincennes and Sèvres 1745-1783 as a painter of birds, animals, landscapes and figures, is now recognized as the pre-eminent painter of birds previously known only through his mark as 'The Crescent Painter'.
The combination of pink and green ground colours is found on Sèvres porcelain dating 1759-1761. The factory records note the sale of cups and saucers with such decoration between 1760 and mid-1761 to the dealers Bachelier, Mme Lair, Machart, Poirier and Tesnieres. A pink and green déjeuner is listed as having been sold to Dulac for 528 livres in the second quarter of 1761. It is possible that this entry refers to the service to which the present cup and saucer originally belonged. However, it is equally possible that the déjeuner in question is that sold to Louis XV at Versailles in December 1760.
See Linda H. Roth and Clare Le Corbeiller, French Eighteenth-Century Porcelain at the Wadsworth Atheneum: The J. Pierpont Morgan Collection, Hartford, 2000, cat. no. 86 for a complete discussion of the museum's tray and the probable provenance of the service as recorded in the Sèvres archives. See also Adrian Sassoon, Vincennes and Sèvres Porcelain, Catalogue of the Collections, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, CA, 1991, no. 8, pp. 39-41.
Louis-Denis Armand, recorded at Vincennes and Sèvres 1745-1783 as a painter of birds, animals, landscapes and figures, is now recognized as the pre-eminent painter of birds previously known only through his mark as 'The Crescent Painter'.