CIRCA 1840-45

These vases can be confidently attributed to the firm of Jacob-Petit. First cited in the Almanach du Commerce in 1834, Jacob-Petit established themselves at Sèvres in 1847 in association with Moriot père and by 1850 employed 150 workers. Their success, however, was to a large part responsible for their bankruptcy in 1848, as their succesful models were plagiarised, their apprentices poached by the competition and their manufacturing techniques became increasingly expensive.

A closely related pair of vases néoclassiques - inspired by Etruscan protoypes - now in the musée National de Céramique, Sèvres, is illustrated in R. de Plinval de Guillebou, Faience et Porcelaine de Paris XVIII-XIX Siècle, Dijon, 1995, pp.376-77, fig. 364.