Plateau-corbeille losange àjouré: C.41B-1961

Titles

Plateau-corbeille losange àjouré

Maker(s)

Factory: Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory
Répareur: Censier, Charles (Possibly)

Entities

• Tray
• Factory name: plateau lozenge

Categories

• Soft-paste porcelain

Description

Soft-paste porcelain tray with pierced sides, decorated with a turquoise ground, a reserve painted in enamels with a bouquet of flowers, and gilding

Soft-paste porcelain, moulded, pierced, and decorated with a bleu celeste ground, painting in blue, green, yellow, pale and dark pink, red, and purple enamels, and gilding. Lozenge-shaped with deep, sloping sides, pierced to resemble stylised leaves with an anthemion in the centre of each side. The rim is scalloped and the lower part of the outer edge of the footring is moulded to resemble basketwork. There is a suspension hole in the footring. The ground is bleu celeste decorated with garlands of gilt husks. In the centre there is an oval reserve framed by a band of chased gilding, and painted in polychrome enamels with a bouquet of flowers. The interior and exterior of the sides have a bleu celeste ground alternating with reserved white zones outlined with gold.

One of a pair with C.41A-1961.

Notes

History note: Chérémetèff (Sheremetev) Collection of Sèvres Porcelain, St Petersburg; exhibited by Asher Wertheimer, 158 Bond Street, London, 1906, nos. 12 and 13 CHECK; probably Mrs Walter Burn (rather than Burns as on the label), 69 & 71 Brook Street, London; Mary Ethel, Viscountess Harcourt (née Burns); sold Christie's, London, 22 June 1927, Old English and Continental porcelain, decorative objects and old French furniture, lot 19 CHECK SALE CATALOGUE;. Louis C.G. Clarke, Cambridge

Legal notes

L.C.G. Clarke Bequst, 1960

Place(s) associated

• Sèvres ⪼ France

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1960) by Clarke, Louis Colville Gray

Dating

18th Century, Mid#
Louis XV
Production date: AD 1769 : The tray bears the date letter for 1769

Note

David Peters (Documentation 2005) has posited that the bulk of this service, mainly for dessert, was purchased on 5 November 1768 by an unnamed buyer, whom he considered may have been the Monsieur de Cotensky who on on 9 March 1769 purchased 24 plates and 2 ice buckets, pieces which were items not included in the order of 5 November 1768. Monsieur de Cotensky was possibly Nikolai Konstantinovich Chotinski, Russian chargé d’affaires to France from 24 December 1767 to January 1774. There were two corbeilles losanges at 216 livres in the November 1768 order, which as the Fitzwilliam's are dated 1769 raises a question of whether they are the same ones, particularly as there are two in the Dodge Collection (71.222, 71,223), which have similar gilding, and reserves painted with birds after Buffon. Those however, were painted by Aloncle. In the exhibition of Sèvres from the Sheremeteff collection held by Asher Wertheimer in Bond Street, two plateaux-corbeilles losanges ajourées were nos. 10 and 11, said to be painted by Dodin, and a further two, nos. 12 and 13 by Le Bel. It seems possible that the last two were the two now in the Fitzwilliam and that the identification of the painter who signed L. as Le Bel was in error for Levé, although the catalogue appears to indicate that all the pieces in this service in the list were painted with birds.

The plateau -corbeille lozange was introduced in 1755

This plateau-corbeille losange ajourée, and its pair (C.41A-1961) with two compotiers ronds C.37A & B-1961, are all decorated with swags of husks or wheat ear, and probably formed part of a service decorated with birds from Buffon or flowers, which in the 19th century belonged to Count A.D. Sheremetev and was exhibited in London by the dealer Asher Wertheimer in Bond Street in 1906.

School or Style

Rococo