CIRCA 1760, BLUE INTERLACED L MARK ENCLOSING DATE LETTER G, PAINTER'S MARK N FOR FRANCOIS-JOSEPH ALONCLE, PAINTER'S FIVE DOTS MARK NEAR FOOTRIM PROBABLY FOR JACQUES FONTAINE, INCISED I

This type of decoration with its combination of blue and gilt trellis pattern and bird vignettes is known as mosaïque Oiseaux and is particularly associated with a service presented in 1760 to Karl-Theodore, of Sulzbach, Elector of Palatine by King Louis XV of France. The service, which consisted of two hundred and twenty-two pieces and additional biscuit figures survives substantially intact in the Residenzmuseum, Munich and in the reserve collection of the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum. See David Peters, Sèvres Plates and Services of the 18th Century, Little Berkhamsted, 2005, Vol. II, pp. 321-322, for a full listing of pieces in the service. 1 The mosaïque ground was popular in the 1750s and 1760s and Madame de Pompadour is recorded amongst the earliest buyers of pieces with mosaïque borders combined with flower-sprays, see those pieces sold by Christie's in London on 12 May 2010, lots 241-243.

Aloncle was a painter of birds, animals and landscapes, who was active at Sèvres from 1758 to 1781. Jacques Fontaine painted flowers, figures, patterns and cameos and was also a gilder at Vincennes and Sèvres from 1752 to 1807.

1. The author notes that diplomatic correspondence 'indicates that the gift was intended to promote friendship with the Elector during the time of the Seven Years War and was presented to the Elector on 25.5.1760 at Mannheim by Gabriel d'Alesme, Minister-Plenipotentiary of France to the Palatinate'.