A Sèvres Porcelain Chestnut Basket and Cover on Stand (Marronnière à ozier tenant au plateau), circa 1760
Estimate
6,000 - 8,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
A Sèvres Porcelain Chestnut Basket and Cover on Stand (Marronnière à ozier tenant au plateau), circa 1760
of oval form, pierced with white zig-zag ornament entwined with interlocking ribbon, the foot of the basket and the oval centre of the cover moulded with basket-weave ornament, the loop finial to the cover moulded with entwined blue ribbon, gilt and blue line rims, interlaced LL mark in blue below the unidentified painter's mark of a smoking candle, indistinct incised mark
width 11 in.
28 cm
Anonymous sale, Bonhams, London, 18 May, 2005, lot 91;
Private Collection, England;
Adrian Sassoon, London;
From whom acquired by the present collector on 21 September, 2021.
This type of pierced basket was designed for serving roasted or occasionally sugared chestnuts (marrons glacés) during the dessert course. Its openwork design promoted air circulation, helping to preserve the sugar coating and prevent it from melting. Marronnières were generally sold individually, although they were also supplied in pairs, and sometimes for inclusion in larger dessert services. Several variants of the form were introduced at Sèvres in 1757 and 1758. Examples described in the sales records as tenant au plateau ('attached to the stand') sold for 155 and 168 livres in 1759, although their decoration is not recorded.
A particularly close comparison to the present example, formerly in the collection of J. P. Morgan, is marked with the letter G for 1760 and displays the same blue highlighting. It is now in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford (inv. 1917.1016). Sassoon (op. cit.) also records another example with the same decoration, dated 1759, formerly in the collection of Major-General Sir George Burns at North Mimms Park, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, later sold at Christie's on 24-25 September 1979 (lot 652) and again on 5 May 1999 (lot 24). The author notes that two further similarly decorated examples with blue highlighting, possibly the same pieces, appeared at auction in 1869 and 1882, one of them having been resold in 1881.
A marronnière, decorated with white piercing, gilt, with an interlaced bleu-céleste ribbon, bears the same finely executed candlestick mark. It is preserved in the Wallace Collection, London (inv. C473), and is illustrated in Rosalind Savill, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, London, 1988, vol. II, pp. 759-62. The painter responsible for this mark has not yet been identified.
Related Literature
Adrian Sassoon, Vincennes and Sèvres Porcelain Catalogue of the Collections, The. J. Paul Getty Museum, 1991, pp. 64-68, no. 12.
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