A SEVRES PORCELAIN BLEU NOUVEAU TWO-HANDLED POT-POURRI VASE AND COVER (VASE 'POT POURRI MERCURE')

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A SEVRES PORCELAIN BLEU NOUVEAU TWO-HANDLED POT-POURRI VASE AND COVER (VASE 'POT POURRI MERCURE')

CIRCA 1768, BLUE INTERLACED L'S

Details

A SEVRES PORCELAIN BLEU NOUVEAU TWO-HANDLED POT-POURRI VASE AND COVER (VASE 'POT POURRI MERCURE')
CIRCA 1768, BLUE INTERLACED L'S
The oval pierced domed cover with applied portrait medallions of Mercury and Plotina and garlands of gilt berried laurel over panels of trellis, the vase with egg-and-dart rim above the ribbon-tied reeded rope shoulder terminating in up-swept rope and foliate handles, above a reeded oviform base and a further band of white rope, on a flaring base; together with a modern gilt-metal base
13. in. (32.5 cm.) high (3)

Provenance

Roger Stewart; Christie's, London, 5 July 1974, lot 173 (600 gns. to Le Roux - on an additional green-ground socle painted with swags of flowers and with a variant cover finial).
Property of a California Private Collector; Sotheby Parke Bernet & Co., New York, 8 March 1979, lot 232.
Property of a Texas Gentleman; Christie's, New York, 25-26 October 1994, lot 254.

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Lot Essay

As noted in a stock inventory taken at Sèvres in 1766, the present model sold for 720 livres.

G. de Bellaigue, French Porcelain in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, London, 2009, vol. I, nos. 47-48 illustrates two vases in the collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of the same form as present lot. One (no. 48) features portrait medallions of King Louis XV of France and Empress Maria-Theresa of Austria in lieu of medallions of Mercury and Plotina. He suggests that the Queen's vase was perhaps a diplomatic gift in the years after the wedding of Maria Theresa's daughter, Marie-Antoinette, and Louis XV's grandson, the future Louis XVI. The other (no. 47), was significantly altered in the 19th century. For the pair in the Walters Art Gallery, formerly in the collection of E.M. Hodgkins, nos. 52 and 53, see T. Préaud and M. Brunet, Sèvres des Origines à nos Jours, Paris, 1978, pl. XXXIII.

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