Two Sèvres Porcelain Revolutionary Cups and Stands (Gobelet à anses étrusques), circa 1795
Estimate
5,000 - 7,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Two Sèvres Porcelain Revolutionary Cups and Stands (Gobelet à anses étrusques), circa 1795
the cups of oviform with gilt-highlighted bracket handles, each with an oval medallion on either side painted with symbols of the French revolution, the stands each with three medallions of further symbolic imagery, including Phrygian caps, fasces, a Masonic triangle, three entwined laurel wreaths, military trophies, the tricolor, and the Constitution and Declaration of the Rights of Man, reserved by a dark-blue ground enriched by two-toned gilt foliate scroll borders, the gilt-edged rims with bands of the tricolor tied around bunches of wheat, script Sevres marks in blue over RF for République Française, painter's mark LG for Étienne-Henry Le Guay, aîné, later père (active at Vincennes and Sèvres between 1748-49 and 1751-97), painter's mark of four dots, possibly for Mlle Marie-Félicité Baudouin (active at Sèvres between 1786-1800), indistinct incised marks
diameter of stands 6 5/8 in.
16.8 cm
Dr. William P. Harbeson Collection, collection no. F.S.88 (fragment of paper label to one cup);
his sale, Part 3, Parke Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, 4 April, 1972, lot 246;
Dalva Brothers II, Christie's, Paris, 23 November, 2021, lot 141;
Where acquired by the present collector.
I. Wardropper, News from a Radiant Future, Soviet Porcelain , The Art Institute of Chicago, 1992, pp.14 and 16, fig. 1;
C. Jones, Shapely Bodies, The Image of Porcelain in Eighteenth-Century France , Newark, 2013, fig. PS.5.
Comparative Literature:
C. Béalu, “Revolutionary porcelains”, in Art & Curiosities , 1989, pp. 10-39, no. 108;
P. Roditi, “A minute Sèvres Revolutionary Gobelet Litron et saucer and its possible sources”, in The French Porcelain Society Journal, vol. III, 2007, pp. 167-178.
On 6 October 1789, the workers of the Sèvres manufactory witnessed an extraordinary spectacle: Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette and the french royal family passing through the town of Sèvres under escort as they were compelled to leave Versailles for the last time and head for Paris.
Deprived of much of its aristocratic clientele, the manufactory endured considerable hardship brought on by the revolution. Sèvres nevertheless continued production, although wages were often reduced or went unpaid. The factory remained royal property until the establishment of the Republic in August 1792, when it passed under state control. In 1793, the Minister of the Interior, Dominique-Joseph Garat, ordered the destruction of moulds and models associated with the monarchy. The factory's director, Antoine Régnier, assigned seven workers to carry out the task, systematically dismantling works bearing overt royal associations. At the same time, the celebrated interlaced L mark was replaced by RF (République Française), sometimes accompanied by the name Sèvres. During the Revolutionary period, the manufactory became an important vehicle for the dissemination of civic and republican ideals. Étienne-Maurice Falconet's graceful L'Éducation de l'Amour gave way to subjects such as L'Éducation du Citoyen, La France gardant sa Constitution, and La Liberté et l'Égalité, modelled by Louis-Simon Boizot. Charles-Nicolas Dodin likewise produced painted allegories celebrating the new political order.
As demonstrated by the present Gobelets à anses étrusques, a shape conceived by Boizot for Marie-Antoinette's celebrated dairy at Rambouillet, Revolutionary iconography quickly entered the painters' repertoire, with tricolour ribbons reflecting the new political order. The bonnet phrygien, or Cap of Liberty, appears alongside the Roman fasces, emblematic of civic authority and unity. Together, these motifs encapsulate the visual language of Revolutionary France and the transformation of Sèvres from a royal manufactory into an instrument of the Republic
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