Lot Essay
The gilding pattern found on the Minton plate is reminiscent of that found on a Sèvres service decorated with birds made for the comte d'Artois. On both plates, the bird decoration is almost certainly after Frangois Nicolas Martinet's illustrations for the comte de Buffon's Histoire naturelle des oiseaux published in ten volumes between 1770 and 1786. The factory began using a copy of this treatise as a basis for decoration from about 1780.