A SÈVRES PART DESSERT-SERVICE (service fond blue lapis corbeille de fleurs) from the Chateaubriand service, the centres finely painted with luxuriant garden flowers including roses, tulips, narcissi, lilac and hibiscus, on brown and gilt striped grounds simulating baskets, the 'lapis' blue borders with gilt striations within gilt rims, comprising:

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

细节

A SÈVRES PART DESSERT-SERVICE (service fond blue lapis corbeille de fleurs) from the Chateaubriand service, the centres finely painted with luxuriant garden flowers including roses, tulips, narcissi, lilac and hibiscus, on brown and gilt striped grounds simulating baskets, the 'lapis' blue borders with gilt striations within gilt rims, comprising:
Four circular pedestal bowls, the interiors with symmetrical trailing ivy suspending leaves below zig-zag ornament, on spreading gilt circular feet
Twenty-four plates (one with slight flaking to centre, two with very slight rubbing to gilt wells, two with footrim chips)
- printed blue interlaced L marks enclosing a fleur-de-lys, Sèvres and some with date code for 1823, various incised, date, painter's and gilder's marks, 1823

来源

S.E. M. le Vicomte de Chateaubriand
Anon., sale Christie's London, 1 July 1985, lot 1 (part)

拍品专文

The Chateaubriand service was delivered upon the order of The Minister of the King's Household to the Vicomte de Chateaubriand, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, on the 21st August 1823

The order was a supplement to the service previously ordered in two different batches whilst Chateaubriand was Ambassador to England. The previous orders were delivered on 15 April 1822 and 2 May 1822.

The order of the 21st August 1823 comprised:
100 assiettes 40/4,000
4 corbeilles rondes 140/560
1 jatte à pied 50
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4,610

The present lot is from the last delivery only. The painters of the service were Jacques-Nicolas Sinnson 1795-1845, Joseph-Leopold Weydinger 1778-1804, 1807-8, 1811, 1816-29, and Jean François Desnoyers-Chaponnet ainé. The archives at the Manufacture National de Sèvres fully record which pieces of the service were packed in which box and the painter's register documents which pieces were painted by which artist. Few services can be more completely documented, the Archives recording every stage of the decoration of each piece.

François de Chateaubriand, 1768-1848, was a distinguished man of letters and diplomacy. Born in Britanny, he began his career in 1791 with a visit to America, subsequently travelling widely to Berlin, Prague, Vienna and Jerusalem. He was in London from 1792 to 1800 and again as Ambassador to the Court of St. James in 1822. He was also Ambassador to Berlin and Rome.

Chateaubriand was both extravagant by nature as well as an acute observer of the people and events of his day and included Madame Récamier among his mistresses. His name is perhaps most widely known for the special filet-steak cut invented by his chef Montmiriel.