Lot Essay
Jean-Nicolas Le Bel working at Sèvres 1773-93 and Louis-François Lécot working at Sevres 1763-4 and 1773-1802
This dessert-plate comes from an extensive combined dinner and dessert service, which was made at Sèvres in 1792/3 for an Englishman. The purchaser was recorded in the Sèvres archives as 'M. Sudell Anglais', the service bears the coat-of-arms of the descendants of William Sudell of Wanley, Yorkshire. Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue has suggested that he was Henry Sudell of Ashley House, Box, Wiltshire (1765-1856)
The service was purchased from the factory through the agency of the Parisian banker Jean-Frédéric Perregaux (1744-1808), who specialised in banking and other services for English visitors to France, see Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue, "Jean-Frederic Perregaux, The Englishman's Best Friend", Antologia di Belle Arti, Mélanges Verlet: Studi Sulle Arti Decorative in Europa, II, 1986, pp. 80-90. The archives record that the service was purchased on 31st December 1792 for 28,500 livres, and it was described as 'Service Beau bleu, Peint en oiseaux d'après la Collection d'histoire Naturelle de Buffon, et Armoiries Co au No 140 des deseins'. It was purchased by Perregaux in conjunction with an unidentified person named 'Lanos', and each of them was paid a commission in porcelain by the factory. Each dinner plate cost 72 livres, which was a very high price compared with other plates. The birds are copied from F.-N. Martinet's engravings which illustrated the Comte de Buffon's volumes of Histoire naturelle des Oiseaux published from 1771 to 1786. There were 24 dessert plates produced. Very few Sèvres Armorial services exist and very few pieces of this service are known, there are a pair of oval serving dishes in the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
This dessert-plate comes from an extensive combined dinner and dessert service, which was made at Sèvres in 1792/3 for an Englishman. The purchaser was recorded in the Sèvres archives as 'M. Sudell Anglais', the service bears the coat-of-arms of the descendants of William Sudell of Wanley, Yorkshire. Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue has suggested that he was Henry Sudell of Ashley House, Box, Wiltshire (1765-1856)
The service was purchased from the factory through the agency of the Parisian banker Jean-Frédéric Perregaux (1744-1808), who specialised in banking and other services for English visitors to France, see Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue, "Jean-Frederic Perregaux, The Englishman's Best Friend", Antologia di Belle Arti, Mélanges Verlet: Studi Sulle Arti Decorative in Europa, II, 1986, pp. 80-90. The archives record that the service was purchased on 31st December 1792 for 28,500 livres, and it was described as 'Service Beau bleu, Peint en oiseaux d'après la Collection d'histoire Naturelle de Buffon, et Armoiries Co au No 140 des deseins'. It was purchased by Perregaux in conjunction with an unidentified person named 'Lanos', and each of them was paid a commission in porcelain by the factory. Each dinner plate cost 72 livres, which was a very high price compared with other plates. The birds are copied from F.-N. Martinet's engravings which illustrated the Comte de Buffon's volumes of Histoire naturelle des Oiseaux published from 1771 to 1786. There were 24 dessert plates produced. Very few Sèvres Armorial services exist and very few pieces of this service are known, there are a pair of oval serving dishes in the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh