Lot Essay
The arms are those of the French Royal Family, comprising a medallion of fleurs de lys on an underglaze-blue ground, surmounted by a Royal Crown and encircled by the Orders of the Holy Ghost and of St. Michael.
Another example of these very rare spice boxes was sold in our Monaco Rooms, 22 June 1989, lot 77.
This spice box is apparently copying a porcelain prototype made at one of the French factories, either St. Cloud or Rouen. An example of the St. Cloud model is illustrated by G. Savage, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century French Porcelain, pl. 4(a); see also Les Porcelainiers du XVIIIème Siècle Français, pl.59 for an example in the collections of the Musée de Sèvres. The museum also has a Chinese Export porcelain vase decorated with the arms of France similar to the present lot, originally from the Grandidier Collection, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol.7, no.160. The only other tripod bowl that appears to have been published is the example reproduced by M. Beurdeley, op. cit., Cat.186 from the Pierre Delbée Collection, Paris
Another example of these very rare spice boxes was sold in our Monaco Rooms, 22 June 1989, lot 77.
This spice box is apparently copying a porcelain prototype made at one of the French factories, either St. Cloud or Rouen. An example of the St. Cloud model is illustrated by G. Savage, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century French Porcelain, pl. 4(a); see also Les Porcelainiers du XVIIIème Siècle Français, pl.59 for an example in the collections of the Musée de Sèvres. The museum also has a Chinese Export porcelain vase decorated with the arms of France similar to the present lot, originally from the Grandidier Collection, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol.7, no.160. The only other tripod bowl that appears to have been published is the example reproduced by M. Beurdeley, op. cit., Cat.186 from the Pierre Delbée Collection, Paris