tobacco-jar
- Museum number
- 1913,1220.134
- Description
-
Tobacco Jar and Cover (pot à tabac); soft-paste porcelain, highly translucent; cylindrical; domed cover surmounted by a flattened conical knop; rim of cover has been ground off; both cover and pot are moulded with three groups of prunus branches painted in pink, two shades of green and pale brown, heightened with gilding; knop gilt; silver-gilt mounts stamped with marks.
- Production date
-
1740-1750 (made; circa)
-
1750-1800 (decorated)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 13.80 centimetres (with cover)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Dawson 1994
The jar and cover, although unmarked, are typical of the pieces usually left undecorated which are attributed to the Saint-Cloud factory. The shape of the knop and the disposition of the ornament is similar to reg. no. Franks.341 but the prunus sprays differ and the paste of the tobacco jar is much whiter.
Prunus branches in relief on pots of this kind were left uncoloured, and many examples survive (See Williams, Winifred, ‘Exhibition of Eighteenth Century European White Porcelain’, London, June 1975 (catalogue of a selling exhibition), cat. 9). The colour scheme used here is unparalleled on eighteenth-century pieces, although the two colours of green and the pale brown may have been copied from Chantilly overglaze colours.
The gilding of the knop and the grinding away of the rim of the lid to accommodate the genuine eighteenth-century mount are additional evidence of the later embellishment of this rather undistinguished jar.
Comparable Examples:
1) Paris, Baroness von Seidlitz Collection.
2) USA, New York, Parke-Bernet, 16 May 1959, Lot 239, Thelma Chrysler Foy Collection, pair sold for $1300.
3) USA, New York, Sotheby Parke-Bernet, 17 May 1980, Lot 171, Bernice Chrysler Garbisch Collection, Volume Two.
4) USA, Washington, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, on loan from the Estate of Dr H. Syz, October 1991, inv. 1386.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1913
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1913,1220.134