- Museum number
- 1923,0314.135.CR
- Description
-
Cat; soft-paste porcelain, lead-glazed; hollow, moulded in one piece; painted in yellow, green, blue and orange enamels with flowers, insects, a building and figures in the oriental style; the cat's mouth and eyebrows are painted in orange and the eyes are green; no marks.
- Production date
- 1735-1745 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 4.60 centimetres
-
Length: 6.80 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Dawson 1994
The piece was evidently intended to be mounted as a box. A dog mounted in silver is in the Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris,¹ with same type of decoration and gilding. A rather different cat in the same collection is mounted in silver-gilt, the mount stamped with the décharge mark used in Paris between 1738 and 1744.² Other animals, such as a lamb, a hare and a spaniel, were clearly part of the same series and are similarly decorated.³
1. Inv. MAD 32 707, dog's head discharge mark for the ‘sous-fermier’ H. Louvet, Dec. 1732-Oct. 1738. The author is grateful to Gérard Mabille for providing information about this piece.
2. Jarry, Madeleine, ‘Chinoiserie: Chinese influence on European decorative art, 17th and 18th centuries’, Fribourg and London, 1981, p. 113, fig. 116.
3. Beaucamp-Markowsky, Barbara, ‘Boîtes en Porcelaine des manufactures européennes au 18e siècle’, Fribourg, 1985, pp. 448-9.
Comparable Examples:
1) Limoges, Musée national Adrien-Dubouché, inv. 1065, mounted, illus. H.-P. Fourest, ‘La Céramique française’, Milan, 1982, pl. 208, and Beaucamp-Markowsky, 1985, pp. 426, 448.
2) London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. C.1311-1919, with silver mounts bearing Paris discharge mark 1738-44.
3) Private collection, illus. in R. Steiskal-Paur, Kostbarkeiten aus Porzellan, ‘Weltkunst’, 15 October 1982, fig. 14, p. 2901.
4) USA, New York, Christie's, Christner Collection, Vol. III, 9 June 1979, Lot 133 (called Chantilly c. 1745), silver mounts.
5) Phillips, 8 June 1988, Lot 193, silver mounts.
6) Sussex, Sotheby's, 22 May 1991, Lot 873, modern mounts.
Literature: Tait, Hugh, ‘Porcelain’, London, 1962, pl. XVII; revised ed. 1972, pl. 17.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1923
- Acquisition notes
- Presented by the Rt. Hon. Viscount Dillon, FSA, in memory of his son, 1923.
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1923,0314.135.CR
