This remarkable piece dates from the same year as the cuvette courteille by Dodin in the Metroplitan Museum, see Brunet and Préaud, fig. 111. The pieces with chinoiseries supplied to Madame de Pompadour in 1760, now in the J. Paul Getty Museum and in the Louvre, formerly in the Grog collection, Paris, see Brunet and Préaud, pl. XXII and XXIII date from the previous year. These all are by Charles Nicola Dodin. The floral painting on the Thornton Wilson cuvette and the pair of vases Duplessis à tête d'éléphants in the Walters Art Gallery again of 1760 is closely similar to that on the stand in the present lot. The shapes of the leaves and the angular stems are consistant on all three pieces. This leads one to suspect that although Dodin is known to have executed the Chinoiseries, the remaining areas of the decorated surface could have been handled by another painter, accounting for the presence of the unidentified mark on these pieces.

The figures taking tea are derived from Le Thé, the engraving
by Huquier after Boucher. It is interesting to note that this same engraving had already provided a source of inspiration for the decoration of a Vincennes seau à bouteille some nine years earlier.

The other panels are also derived from Huquier's scènes de la vie
chinoise a set of twelve plates. They have been used by the Sèvres painter as a source of figures rather than in their entirety. Single
figures have been picked out of larger groups. In one instance, the
boy with a basket of fish, the object hanging beside him is held by
another figure in the engraved original. For most of the scènes, see Piere Jean-Richard, Paris, 1978, figs. 1125-1133.

For a discussion of this whole subject see the authoritative article by Tamara Préaud Sèvres, la Chine et les "chinoiseries" au XVIIIe si©cle in The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, vol.47, 1989.

The present lot is a significant addition to the canon of Sèvres chinoiserie