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Lot Essay
The present ewer and basin is from a small group of objects produced at Sèvres between 1759 and 1763 decorated in a strong palette with Chinoiserie scenes and flowers in the Kakiemon style. A partial list of these pieces follows. For comprehensive articles on the subject, see Carl Christian Dauterman, 'Chinoiserie Motifs and Sèvres: some fresh evidence', Apollo, Vol. LXXXIV, no. 58, December 1966, pp. 476-481 and Ronald Freyberger, 'Chinese Genre Painting at Sèvres', American Ceramics Circle Bulletin, Vol. I, 1970-1971.
The pair of rose marbré cuvettes 'Mahon' in the collection of the British Museum [Aileen Dawson, French Porcelain, A Catalogue of the British Museum Collection, London, 1994, cat. no. 106, colour plate 16]
The rose marbré cuvette 'Courteille' in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art [Marcelle Brunet and Tamara Préaud, Sèvres des origines à nos jours, Paris, 1978, p. 161, no. 111],
The pair of vases 'à tête d'éléphant' in the collection of the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore
The pair of rose marbré pot-pourri 'Myrte' previously in the F.M. Hodgkins Collection, London
The pair of blue, pink and green ground pot pourri 'fontaine' ou 'ga dauphins' in the collection of The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles [Adrian Sasson, Vincennes and Sèvres Porcelain, Catalogue of the Collections, Malibu, 1991, pp. 57-63]. These were originally part of a garniture that included a vase à vaisseau and a pair of pots pourris à bobêches. Listed together in the 1764 estate inventory of Madame de Pompadour's collections, the last three vases are now in the collection of the Louvre.
The painting on almost all of this group is either marked by or has been attributed to the hand of Dodin. Nicolas Charles Dodin (1734-1803) is today recognized as the finest painter en miniature working at Vincennes and Sèvres in the 18th century. Hired in 1754 as a figure painter at a salary of 24 livres per month, he first worked in monochrome, faithfully copying the engravings by Aveline, de la Rue and Huquier of putti painted by François Boucher. Once confident of his technique, he quickly moved on to full color, and to the detailed scenes on which his reputation is based. His skill was recognized by the managers at the factory, and Dodin was called upon time and time again to decorate pieces destined for the most important collectors of the day including Louis XV, his two mistresses Madame de Pompadour and Madame du Barry, Louis XVI, his two brothers - Louis Stanislas Xavier, comte de Provence (later Louis XVIII) and Charles Philippe, comte d'Artois (later Charles X), and Catherine the Great, empress of all the Russias.
The model of the ewer and basin, probably first conceived by Jean-Claude Duplessis, was originally called pot à eau et jatte 'feuille d'eau'. The largest première grandeur ewer was first produced in 1756 and a second slightly smaller size was produced in the following year. A third size appears to have been produced in 1758. Original plaster models for all three sizes of ewer still survive at Sèvres, but no ewers of the third and smallest size appear to have survived.
At the J. Paul Getty Museum is also a pink-ground ewer and basin dated 1756-1757 of the same form, size and provenance as the present green-ground example. Painted with flowers and illustrated in color on the catalogue cover along with the present ewre and basin and a pink and green ewer and basin of variant form now in a private European collection, it was offered as lot 288 in the Henry Spencer sale of Important Continental Oriental and English Porcelain Removed from Welbeck Abbey Nottinghamshire. Fourteen years later, it was again offered at auction, this time through Sotheby's in London on 12 June 1984, lot 213 where it was acquired by the museum.
In his comprehensive entry for this pink example in his catalogue of Sèvres porcelain at the museum [Adrian Sasson, Op Cit., pp. 24-28], Mr. Sassoon lists all recorded examples of the first and second size. He notes only two other Sèvres broc et jatte 'feuille d'eau' of the first size known to have survived: the Getty pink example, and a green-ground example also painted with flowers. Formerly in the Grandjean Collection, it is now in the musée des arts décoratifs, Paris, and is illustrated by Tamara Préaud and Antoine d'Albis, La Porcelaine de Vincennes, Paris, 1991, p. 129, no. 57. Omitted were the present green-ground example and a controversial incompletely gilt bleu céleste example painted with flowers sold anonymously, Christies London, 5 July 2004, lot 91.
Surviving records in the Sèvres archives show that only three ewers and basins moulded with water lilies and of the first size appear to have been sold before 1760. The present example, the green example now in the musée des arts décoratifs and the pink example at the Getty would appear to account for these three.
It is unclear how or when the present ewer and basin first came to Welbeck Abbey, seat of the dukes of Portland, although several members of the family are likely purchasers. The first of these is Margaret, wife and widow of the 2nd Duke (1715-1785), known to have collected French pictures and also to have bought Sèvres. It was she who brought Welbeck Abbey into the family upon her marriage to the second Duke in 1734. After her death in 1786, a sale was held in London of property from her estate in which some Sèvres porcelain was included [A Catalogue of the Portland Museum, Property of Dowager Duchess of Portland, Deceased, sale catalogue, Skinner & Co., Privy Gardens, Whitehall, London, 24 April 1786 and thirty-seven following days - lot 432 being a Sèvres tea service]. Not included in this sale was the Antique glass vase now known as 'The Portland Vase'. Purchased by her in 1784 from Sir William Hamilton, it was inherited by her son, William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland 14 April 1738-30 October 1809). He, in turn, lent it to Josiah Wedgwood. Wedgwood devoted considerable time to duplicating it in Jasperware and made it famous through various copies. He also loaned the vase to the British Museum for safe-keeping, at which point it was dubbed the 'Portland Vase'.
Both the 3rd duke and William Henry Cavendish Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, 4th Duke of Portland (1768-1854), sophisticated men of society and politics, could equally have acquired the ewer and basin. Another candidate is the 5th duke, William John Cavendish Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, (1800-1879), a British aristocratic eccentric who preferred to live in seclusion. After assuming the title, he stripped all the rooms of Welbeck Abbey of their furniture, including tapestries and portraits, and stored them elsewhere. Then he moved to 4-5 rooms in the western wing of his mansion, furnished them as little as possible and began his plans for underground chambers. As for other rooms, he had them painted pink and installed a lavatory basin in all of them.
The 5th Duke also had an underground maze excavated under the estate. He created a complex of underground rooms with an army of hundreds of workmen. They included a large ballroom 174 by 64 feet (53 by 20 meters) wide, a library 250 feet (76 meters) long, an observatory with a large glass roof and a vast billiards-room. The ballroom had a hydraulic lift that could carry 20 guests from the surface and a ceiling that was painted as a giant sunset. However, he never organized any party in this ballroom. The eight tunnels under his estate were reputed to have totalled 15 miles (24 km) and connected various underground chambers and above-ground buildings. He died childless in 1879.
By the time his cousin Charles James Cavendish-Bentinck (1857-1943) succeeded as 6th Duke, the ewer and basin were already in the Collection. It was the 6th Duke who arranged in 1897 for the private publication of an inventory of the Portland Collections, the present ewer and basin appearing as item 297.
The pair of rose marbré cuvettes 'Mahon' in the collection of the British Museum [Aileen Dawson, French Porcelain, A Catalogue of the British Museum Collection, London, 1994, cat. no. 106, colour plate 16]
The rose marbré cuvette 'Courteille' in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art [Marcelle Brunet and Tamara Préaud, Sèvres des origines à nos jours, Paris, 1978, p. 161, no. 111],
The pair of vases 'à tête d'éléphant' in the collection of the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore
The pair of rose marbré pot-pourri 'Myrte' previously in the F.M. Hodgkins Collection, London
The pair of blue, pink and green ground pot pourri 'fontaine' ou 'ga dauphins' in the collection of The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles [Adrian Sasson, Vincennes and Sèvres Porcelain, Catalogue of the Collections, Malibu, 1991, pp. 57-63]. These were originally part of a garniture that included a vase à vaisseau and a pair of pots pourris à bobêches. Listed together in the 1764 estate inventory of Madame de Pompadour's collections, the last three vases are now in the collection of the Louvre.
The painting on almost all of this group is either marked by or has been attributed to the hand of Dodin. Nicolas Charles Dodin (1734-1803) is today recognized as the finest painter en miniature working at Vincennes and Sèvres in the 18th century. Hired in 1754 as a figure painter at a salary of 24 livres per month, he first worked in monochrome, faithfully copying the engravings by Aveline, de la Rue and Huquier of putti painted by François Boucher. Once confident of his technique, he quickly moved on to full color, and to the detailed scenes on which his reputation is based. His skill was recognized by the managers at the factory, and Dodin was called upon time and time again to decorate pieces destined for the most important collectors of the day including Louis XV, his two mistresses Madame de Pompadour and Madame du Barry, Louis XVI, his two brothers - Louis Stanislas Xavier, comte de Provence (later Louis XVIII) and Charles Philippe, comte d'Artois (later Charles X), and Catherine the Great, empress of all the Russias.
The model of the ewer and basin, probably first conceived by Jean-Claude Duplessis, was originally called pot à eau et jatte 'feuille d'eau'. The largest première grandeur ewer was first produced in 1756 and a second slightly smaller size was produced in the following year. A third size appears to have been produced in 1758. Original plaster models for all three sizes of ewer still survive at Sèvres, but no ewers of the third and smallest size appear to have survived.
At the J. Paul Getty Museum is also a pink-ground ewer and basin dated 1756-1757 of the same form, size and provenance as the present green-ground example. Painted with flowers and illustrated in color on the catalogue cover along with the present ewre and basin and a pink and green ewer and basin of variant form now in a private European collection, it was offered as lot 288 in the Henry Spencer sale of Important Continental Oriental and English Porcelain Removed from Welbeck Abbey Nottinghamshire. Fourteen years later, it was again offered at auction, this time through Sotheby's in London on 12 June 1984, lot 213 where it was acquired by the museum.
In his comprehensive entry for this pink example in his catalogue of Sèvres porcelain at the museum [Adrian Sasson, Op Cit., pp. 24-28], Mr. Sassoon lists all recorded examples of the first and second size. He notes only two other Sèvres broc et jatte 'feuille d'eau' of the first size known to have survived: the Getty pink example, and a green-ground example also painted with flowers. Formerly in the Grandjean Collection, it is now in the musée des arts décoratifs, Paris, and is illustrated by Tamara Préaud and Antoine d'Albis, La Porcelaine de Vincennes, Paris, 1991, p. 129, no. 57. Omitted were the present green-ground example and a controversial incompletely gilt bleu céleste example painted with flowers sold anonymously, Christies London, 5 July 2004, lot 91.
Surviving records in the Sèvres archives show that only three ewers and basins moulded with water lilies and of the first size appear to have been sold before 1760. The present example, the green example now in the musée des arts décoratifs and the pink example at the Getty would appear to account for these three.
It is unclear how or when the present ewer and basin first came to Welbeck Abbey, seat of the dukes of Portland, although several members of the family are likely purchasers. The first of these is Margaret, wife and widow of the 2nd Duke (1715-1785), known to have collected French pictures and also to have bought Sèvres. It was she who brought Welbeck Abbey into the family upon her marriage to the second Duke in 1734. After her death in 1786, a sale was held in London of property from her estate in which some Sèvres porcelain was included [A Catalogue of the Portland Museum, Property of Dowager Duchess of Portland, Deceased, sale catalogue, Skinner & Co., Privy Gardens, Whitehall, London, 24 April 1786 and thirty-seven following days - lot 432 being a Sèvres tea service]. Not included in this sale was the Antique glass vase now known as 'The Portland Vase'. Purchased by her in 1784 from Sir William Hamilton, it was inherited by her son, William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland 14 April 1738-30 October 1809). He, in turn, lent it to Josiah Wedgwood. Wedgwood devoted considerable time to duplicating it in Jasperware and made it famous through various copies. He also loaned the vase to the British Museum for safe-keeping, at which point it was dubbed the 'Portland Vase'.
Both the 3rd duke and William Henry Cavendish Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, 4th Duke of Portland (1768-1854), sophisticated men of society and politics, could equally have acquired the ewer and basin. Another candidate is the 5th duke, William John Cavendish Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, (1800-1879), a British aristocratic eccentric who preferred to live in seclusion. After assuming the title, he stripped all the rooms of Welbeck Abbey of their furniture, including tapestries and portraits, and stored them elsewhere. Then he moved to 4-5 rooms in the western wing of his mansion, furnished them as little as possible and began his plans for underground chambers. As for other rooms, he had them painted pink and installed a lavatory basin in all of them.
The 5th Duke also had an underground maze excavated under the estate. He created a complex of underground rooms with an army of hundreds of workmen. They included a large ballroom 174 by 64 feet (53 by 20 meters) wide, a library 250 feet (76 meters) long, an observatory with a large glass roof and a vast billiards-room. The ballroom had a hydraulic lift that could carry 20 guests from the surface and a ceiling that was painted as a giant sunset. However, he never organized any party in this ballroom. The eight tunnels under his estate were reputed to have totalled 15 miles (24 km) and connected various underground chambers and above-ground buildings. He died childless in 1879.
By the time his cousin Charles James Cavendish-Bentinck (1857-1943) succeeded as 6th Duke, the ewer and basin were already in the Collection. It was the 6th Duke who arranged in 1897 for the private publication of an inventory of the Portland Collections, the present ewer and basin appearing as item 297.