Lot Essay
In the early 1750s, experimental ground colours were trialled at Vincennes. The most successful example is the bleu céleste service made for Louis XV in about 1753. The Royal service also uses a number of forms associated with silver wares and the prescence of Duplessis at Vincennes would support this assumption; this service represents a successful and novel marriage of form and decoration. The present plate is painted with more stylised bouquets of flowers, perhaps inspired by Meissen Holzschnitt Blumen; the blue ground is very different in character from the Royal service. It is much paler than conventional dark bleu lapis, perhaps it is intended to imitate lapis lazuli rather than the Chinese powder-blue-ground as has previously been suggested. The great rarity of this type of ground colour emphasises the experimental nature of this decorative scheme in an early period of production. For another similar example in the Musée Ariana, Geneva, see Svend Eriksen & Geoffrey de Bellaigue, Sèvres Porcelain, Vincennes and Sèvres, 1740-1800 (London, 1987), p. 256, no. 71. See also Tamara Préaud and Antoine d'Albis, La Porcelaine de Vincennes (Paris, 1991), p. 124, no. 48 where the authors discuss contemporary descriptions of this ground colour, it was refered to as beau bleu or bleu royal de Bohême or bleu antique sous couverte. The example in the Hermitage Museum is illustarted in the catalogue of the collection, see Nina Birioukova and Natalia Kazakevitch, La Porcelaine de Sèvres du XVIII siècle, Catalogue de la collection (St. Petersburg, 2005), p. 238, no. 1069.