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Lot Essay
The present plate and the ice cup offered as lot 14 in the present sale are from an as yet unidentified ornithological service. The birds are taken from George Edwards A Natural History of Uncommon Birds first published in France as Histoire naturelle des divers oiseaux in 1745 and 1748.
A bleu nouveau saucer from a solitaire dated 1789 and painted by Evans with the same curlew as in the center of the present plate but within a variant landscape was in the collection formed by Nelson A. Rockefeller, sold Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc., New York, 11 April 1980, lot 258.
A watercolor of the design is retained in the Sèvres archive: Le registre modèles de la manufacture, p. 29, no. 56. It records the price of the plate at 48 livres, costly price given that plates painted with simpler decoration of scattered flowers sold for less than one third that price. By comparison, a plate decorated with frise riche, one of the most expensive types of decoration (see lots 70-72), also sold for 48 livres.
A bleu nouveau saucer from a solitaire dated 1789 and painted by Evans with the same curlew as in the center of the present plate but within a variant landscape was in the collection formed by Nelson A. Rockefeller, sold Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc., New York, 11 April 1980, lot 258.
A watercolor of the design is retained in the Sèvres archive: Le registre modèles de la manufacture, p. 29, no. 56. It records the price of the plate at 48 livres, costly price given that plates painted with simpler decoration of scattered flowers sold for less than one third that price. By comparison, a plate decorated with frise riche, one of the most expensive types of decoration (see lots 70-72), also sold for 48 livres.