A Louis XV gilt-bronze mounted Sèvres celestial blue porcelain garniture, circa 1765, mounts attributed to Jean Dulac

Sotheby’s, London, Treasures, 3 July 2013, lot 38 ;

Pelham Paris, 2014.

Related literature :

F. Watson, La collection Wrightsman au Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1966, vol. II, fig. 272 

S. Eriksen, La collection James A. de Rothschild au manoir de Waddesdon, porcelaine de Sèvres, Fribourg, 1968 p. 28 

Dame R. Savill, « Deux paires de vases de Sèvres », Apollo, août 1979, pp. 128-133 

Dame R. Savill, The Wallace Collection, catalogue de porcelaine de Sèvres, 1988, pp.1127 

J. Whitehead, Les Marchands-Merciers et Sèvres, 1993 

D. Alcouffe, Les bronzes d’ameublement au Louvre, Dijon, 2004, p. 146-7, 254-56 

This rare Sèvres porcelain set, enhanced with gilt bronze, offers a remarkable and original illustration of the fashion for lachinage – the Parisian expression of the broader European infatuation with the Orient between the early and mid-18th century. While a fascination with Far Eastern objets d'art emerged as early as the end of the 17th century, a more focused taste for Oriental porcelain mounted in gilt bronze truly flourished only in the 18th century. This aesthetic refinement owes much to the Parisian marchands-merciers, key players in this trend. These influential intermediaries, both prescribers and trendsetters, supplied the most fashionable objects of curiosity, destined to adorn refined interiors. Some were bronzemakers themselves or placed commissions with the Sèvres manufactory and other workshops, yet their primary role was to orchestrate the work of craftsmen from various guilds. Thus, they conceived new designs to incorporate rare and exotic materials – mainly from the Far East – into Parisian taste. 

As the importation of Oriental porcelain into Europe intensified throughout the 18th century, leading to the gradual commoditisation of this once rare and precious material, Parisian marchands-merciers competed in ingenuity to restore its aura of exclusivity. They therefore mounted these pieces in increasingly sophisticated rocaille gilt-bronze settings. The asymmetrical C-shaped scrolls and acanthus motifs characteristic of the rocaille style harmonised surprisingly well with Oriental aesthetics: non-linear perspective, free landscape composition, and seemingly random arrangements of figures. The aim was no longer simply to highlight the exoticism of the porcelain, but to transform its appearance – sometimes even altering its function – into a perfume burner or potpourri holder using openwork frames. As 1750 approached, the craze reached its peak. The journal of Lazare Duvaux, the head of the marchands-merciers, testifies to this frenzy, listing hundreds of pieces delivered to his prestigious clientele, including over 150 to the Marquise de Pompadour alone. 

During the 1760s and 1770s, as a more restrained neoclassical taste – the so-called Greek taste – emerged, monochrome Chinese and Japanese porcelains experienced a renewed interest. In the same period, marchands-merciers faced increasing economic pressures that encouraged them to favour domestic production, particularly that of the recently established Sèvres manufactory. 

Lazare Duvaux himself, in his capacity as advisor to the manufactory, played an active role in this transition: he offered his clientele a growing number of richly mounted French porcelain pieces, thereby asserting the excellence of national decorative art in the face of Oriental imports. It was during this period that the Sèvres manufactory began to produce monochrome pieces inspired by Oriental forms, of which this garniture is a particularly representative example.

The plaster model of the smaller vases composing the set is recorded under the name vase indien B (ill. in Dame Rosalind Savill, ‘Two Pairs of Sèvres Vases at Boughton House’, Apollo August 1979, p.133 fig.7) and is now surviving at the Manufacture National de Sèvres. The factory records list up to six plaster models based on Chinese examples all called ‘vases indiens’, but the ‘vase B’ is the only plaster model to survive. It is based on an archaic bronze vase in the collection of the Emperor Qianlong, known through a printed source newly arrived in France. In 1767 the royal finance minister Henri-Léonard Bertin (1720-1792) was appointed commissaire du roi at Sèvres in a bid to improve the factory’s administration, and in December of the same year he was presented by Père Joseph Amiot (1718-1793), a French Jesuit missionary in Peking, with a copy of the Xiqing Gujian (Catalogue of the Xiqing Antiquities or Mirror of the Antiquities of the Western Palace). This rare 1755 publication was a catalogue of the Imperial antiquities collection numbering 1,529 bronze objects illustrated by woodcut engravings, including five examples similar to the vase indien B.

The shape of the largest vase in the set has not yet been identified in the Sèvres archives. However, a Chinese celadon vase with similar gilt-bronze mounts appears in the famous portrait of Baron de Besenval, suggesting an evident stylistic connection. 

The turquoise hue used here – often referred to as celestial blue – was one of the most fashionable colours in the 1760s. It also recalls certain shades found on porcelain from the Kangxi period (1662–1722). The famous turquoise pot-pourri en coquille, or limaçon sugar bowl, directly inspired by a model from the Qing dynasty, is among the most widespread pieces: pairs were notably acquired by Madame du Barry, the 6th Earl of Coventry, and the Duke of Aumont. Horace Walpole also owned a pair at Strawberry Hill, although it remains unclear whether these were produced by the Sèvres manufactory or imported from China. 

The shapes of our vases are rare, and the origin of the porcelain from which they are made has long been a subject of debate. The garniture was once thought to be of Chinese origin. Only very recently has it been identified as Sèvres, a conclusion supported by a faint incised mark – barely visible – by modeller 5 on the underside of each vase, indicating that the material is French soft-paste porcelain. According to Dame Rosalind Savill, the modeller who used this mark was primarily active in the 1750s and 1760s, working on flower vases, pots-pourris and ornamental vases. The pieces do not bear the usual interlaced ‘L’ mark, perhaps deliberately so, in order to give the impression of being genuine Chinese porcelain. 

The Role of Jean Dulac in the Dissemination of This Fashion 

Jean Dulac (1704–1786), a jeweller and perfumer by profession, ran a shop with his wife in the prestigious rue Saint-Honoré in Paris. In 1753, he was appointed the King's privileged merchant and was among the few authorised to sell the coveted Sèvres porcelain in the capital, alongside Madame Lair, widow of Michel-Joseph Lair, and the merchant Grouet. His name appears regularly in the factory's archives between 1758 and 1776. He supplied the nobility with richly mounted gilt-bronze porcelain pieces, notably for Madame du Barry. In November 1765, Horace Walpole visited his shop, known as À la Tête d'Or, and purchased for his friend John Chute a garniture of three celestial blue Sèvres porcelain pieces, also adorned with gilt-bronze mounts. 

Jean Dulac was a pivotal figure in the dissemination of these mounted porcelains, notably reflecting the Greek taste that gained prominence from the 1760s, as evidenced by the fame of the celebrated Vase Dulac. The mounts of our garniture are particularly representative of an architectural ornamental style that was very much in vogue with the arrival of new ornamentalists such as Le Lorrain, Delafosse and Neufforge. Notably, the laurel motifs, the straight lines of the handles, and the ram motif are used in an almost touching way, with two lambs forming the handles of the two smaller vases, and two rams forming those of the larger one.