A SEVRES BOTTLE-COOLER (SEAU A DEMI-BOUTEILLE) FROM THE 'SERVICE ARABESQUE'

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VA… Read more

LE MASSON'S SEAU FOR THE ARABESQUE SERVICE The Service Arabesque is extraordinary not only because the decoration of its components differs from piece to piece, but because the forms of the pieces were radically different from anything Sèvres had attempted to produce before. The service was at the cutting-edge of the new neo-classical style, and the factory pushed their experimental techniques to the limit, so much so in fact that the new hard paste posed serious problems for the decorators, and some pieces were not considered a success. The architect and engineer Louis Le Masson was employed by the factory to develop new forms for the service, and he looked to Antiquity and Raphael's Vatican paintings for inspiration (Raphael's paintings were widely known through published engravings). Records surviving at Sèvres and the Archives Nationales, Paris, record both the circumstances of the service's creation and its eventual destination. These records include letters between Charles Flahaut de La Billarderie, comte d'Angivillier (d.1809) who had been appointed Directeur des Batiments du Roi in 1774, and Antoine Regnier, the Director of the Sèvres manufactory. Among other things, the letters detail the technical difficulties faced during the service's production1. Much of this correspondence, and subsequent correspondence between various officials and government bodies after the revolution, are included by David Peters in his thorough discussion of the service, Sevres Plates and Services (Little Berkhamsted, 2005), Vol. V, pp. 1085-1095. It is quite clear from the correspondence that the service was originally intended for Louis XVI, even though it was never delivered to him. Work was begun in 1783, and evidence suggests that the service was not completed with all the intended components before production stopped in 1787. One letter (dated 3rd March 1784) from d'Angiviller to Regnier, which refers to 'le projet de Service du Roi en arabesque', records the intended composition of the service, which was to be for 'vingt-quatre couverts'. Le Masson based the forms of the service on a variety of Antique forms; the monteith, or seau crénelé, was very clearly based on a Roman sarcophagus2; the ice-cream cooler, or seau à glace à trépied, was based on a Roman tripod incense burner3, and the saucière was based on a Roman oil-lamp, to name only a few. Le Masson could have based his design for the seau à demi-bouteille on Roman 'columbarium' vase-chambers, which had been promoted a few years earlier by Baron Pierre François Hugues d'Hancarville in his 1767-76 publication of Antiquities Etrusques, Grecques et Romaines. Le Masson would also have undoubtedly been familiar with two publications by the architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Diverse Maniere d'Adornare I Cammine (1769), and Vasi, Candelabra, Cippi.. (1778). The flared rim and bulbous body of this seau also echoes the Grecian 'krater' bowl, which was used by the ancients for mixing spring water with wine, such as the celebrated marble antique example now known as the 'Warwick' vase4. The frieze of this seau even includes two such Etruscan Pompeiian krater vases, depicted nestling in Roman acanthus leaves and each issuing vines. The vases are flanked by leopards, which were considered by the ancients to be sacred attendants at triumphal bacchic feasts and harvest festivals, and were frequently depicted pulling Bacchus in his chariot5. The frieze also depicts two vine-wreathed masks of 'bacchantae' nymphs, who bore fruit-baskets at bacchic feasts (one mask is now principally lacking due to damage). Two artists from Sèvres were attached to Le Masson, who was based at Versailles, to assist him with producing designs for the service. Initially Étienne-Henry Le Guay, and then additionally, his son, Étienne-Charles Le Guay6. Each item of the service had a different decorative scheme7, which was mapped out in watercolour sketches, presumably carried out by one or the other of the Le Guays. The watercolour sketches were subsequently used by the factory painters as a basis for their decoration. Some of the watercolour sketches are still at Sèvres, and are published by Hessling and Lechevallier-Chevignard, Documents anciens de la Manufacture nationale de Sèvres - choix de compositions et de projets de décoration des époques de Louis XVI et du Directoire (plate. XV, fig. 2 is illustrated opposite), and by Sandier and Lechevallier-Chevignard, Les Cartons de la Manufacture nationale de Sèvres - époques Louis XVI et Empire. Regnier requested a design for a seau à bouteille from Le Masson in January 17848, and the completed four 4 seaux à ½ bouteilles appear on his un-dated 1785 report9 of pieces already completed (at the cost of 1,500 livres each). The Sèvres Artist's List (41, 6.1785) records 'Le Guay' as having decorated this seau with '4 Léopards, et deux Testes'. It is interesting to note how closely the decoration follows the original watercolour sketch. It is not known which Royal interior the service was commissioned for. Such an innovative neo-classical service would have harmonised well with the architectural schemes being carried out at that time for Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette at the Château de Marly and elsewhere. Nor is it known why the service was never delivered to Louis. Whatever the reason, the service did not leave Sèvres until after the revolution. The 'first coalition' of European forces which came together against the new French Empire shortly after the revolution included Britain, Austria, Prussia, Spain, Piedmont and the Kingdom of Naples. Prussia soon decided to opt out of this coalition, and it was Karl August, Freiherr von Hardenberg, the Prussian Minister of State, who successfully represented Prussia's negotiated peace with the French, culminating in April 1794 with the Treaty of Basel, which declared Prussia neutral. Hardenberg was a co-signatory of the treaty, and as was customary, he was to be the recipient of an important diplomatic gift. A series of letters in the Archives Nationales (AN F12 14952, Nos. 94-117), record the process whereby the service was selected as an appropriate diplomatic gift to Hardenberg. Much of the correspondence makes reference to the service as having been originally for the King, referring to Louis in derogatory terms10. An undated Commission des Revenues Nationaux report (No. 115) lists the contents of the service, describing the shape and decoration as being 'de forme du gout antique le plus severe, et decorées des superbes arabesques de Raphael. It was deemed suitable as a diplomatic gift, and shortly after 22nd November 1795, it was despatched to Hardenberg in Basel. A limited number of pieces from the service have surfaced on the open market, and these are included in a list of the known pieces of the service compiled by David Peters, ibid., pp. 1092-1095. Most recently, a plate sold by Sotheby's London on 19th November 1996, lot 75, and again by Christie's New York on 17th November 1999, lot 228, is now in the Art Institute of Chicago. Another plate, sold by Christie's Amsterdam on 17th December 2002, lot 140, is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and another, sold by Christie's Paris on 24th June 2003, lot 507, is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A decagonal plate was sold in these Rooms on 5th July 2004, lot 88, and an octagonal plate on 21st November 2005, lot 285. 1. D. Peters, ibid., p. 1088, where all the relevant correspondence in the Sèvres archives is listed. 2. See Marcelle Brunet and Tamara Préaud, Sèvres, Des origins à nos jours (Fribourg, 1978), p. 210, fig. 259, which illustrates the seau crénelé in the Museo Nazionale Duca di Martina, Naples (possibly the example sold in these Rooms on 23rd May 1918, lot 40). 3. See Brunet and Préaud, ibid., p. 218, fig. 281 for a seau à glace à trépied of the same form from a slightly later service. 4. See I. Jenkins, 'Vases & Volcanoes' British Museum Exhibition Catalogue (London, 1996), no.128. 5. The ancient poets believed it was the wine-deity, Dionysus Bacchus, who had civilised the ancients and taught them the art of viticulture, which he had been taught in his youth by Pan's retinue of chimerical satyrs and nymphs in Arcadia. 6. Étienne-Henry Le Guay père (initially l'aîné) was a painter and a gilder active at Sèvres from 1748 to 1749, and from 1751 to 1796. His son, Étienne-Charles Le Guay fils, was a painter active at Sèvres from 1778 to 1781, and from 1809 to 1840. See David Peters, Decorator and date marks on 18th century Vincennes and Sevres porcelain (London, 1997), p. 48 for the marks they used to identify their work. 7. With the exception of the plates, some of which have identical decoration. 8. AN 01 20611 item 5. 9. See Peters, ibid, p. 1090, where he suggests that the date of the report is most probably early June 1785. 10. Letter No. 102, from the Commission d'Agriculture et des Arts to the Commission des Revenues Nationaux, discusses the choice of the service and its history, noting that it had been intended 'pour le dernier Capet par d'Angevilliers'. THE PROPERTY OF S.H. GRAF HARDENBERG

A SEVRES BOTTLE-COOLER (SEAU A DEMI-BOUTEILLE) FROM THE 'SERVICE ARABESQUE'

1784-85, BLUE CROWNED INTERLACED LS MARK AND .LG· MARK FOR LE GUAY

Details

A SEVRES BOTTLE-COOLER (SEAU A DEMI-BOUTEILLE) FROM THE 'SERVICE ARABESQUE'
1784-85, BLUE CROWNED INTERLACED LS MARK AND .LG· MARK FOR LE GUAY
The everted rim with a band of down-turned laurel leaves, the waisted frieze with meandering scrolling vine branches issuing from krater vases, woven about leopards and divided by bacchantae masks, the top of the bulbous body with a further band of down-turned stiff-leaves, the acanthus-wrapped lower part with additional blue, red and purple scrolling fronds, the circular socle with a band of ivy encircling a stave, within a band of down-turned stiff-leaves, gilt band rims (large triangular section replaced at rim with crack to base, extensive chipping to rims, two areas of scratching to enamels, one adjacent to damage on frieze, other adjacent to chipping on foot)
7 in. (17.8 cm.) high

Provenance

Karl August, Freiherr von Hardenberg, Minister of State of the King of Prussia, and thence by descent to the present owner.

Literature

David Peters, Sevres Plates and Services of the 18th Century (Little Berkhamsted, 2005), Vol. V, pp. 1093-94.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

More from British and Continental Ceramics

View All