cup;
saucer
- Museum number
- 1939,0304.1
- Description
-
Cup and saucer (tasse litron); soft-paste porcelain; cup decorated in gold heightened in grey, on a dark blue ground with a scene of a seated warrior in Roman dress extending his right hand towards a kneeling woman; behind her are two women chained to a soldier, and at the furthest edge of the scene two kneeling supplicating women; a male figure holding a (?)bundle of rods stands behind the warrior; band of jewelled translucent orange 'pearls' enclosing scrolls ornamented with tiny white pearls and translucent green dots runs around the rim on a white ground; it is repeated near the foot on a blue ground with white 'pearls'; in the centre of the saucer is a gilt rosette of laurel leaves and berries and floral motifs, heightened in grey; martial trophies alternate with vases of flowers on a blue ground on the border, and the rim is ornamented with jewelling; maker's mark.
- Production date
- 1782
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 12 centimetres (saucer)
-
Height: 5.90 centimetres (cup)
- $Inscriptions
-
-
- Curator's comments
- Dawson 1994
The cup and saucer are of the third size.
The source of the decoration, which probably represents the Clemency or the Continence of Scipio,¹ is based on an untitled print by Philippe Louis Parizeau (1740-81) dated 1780, the fourth of a series of six, the first of which is titled 'Albinus'. This type of décor, described as 'figures étrusques' against production records of the toilet-set made for the comtesse du Nord, seems to have been first introduced at Sèvres in 1782.
Charles-Nicolas Buteux fils, fils aîné, or aîné (b. 1753 in Chantilly),² who joined Sèvres factory staff in November 1763 at the age of nine, painted flowers, border patterns, mongorams, landscapes, and borders or trophies of Republican symbols, as well as applying ground-colours.³ This may be one of his most ambitious productions. He may well have been a member of the Académie de Saint-Luc in Paris in 1790.⁴
The incised mark 43a has been noted by Savill on soft-paste porcelains between 1765-9 and 1779 and the 1790s.⁵
1. See a scene on a silver-gilt snuffbox by Theodore Dassdorf, sold at Sotheby's, 23 May 199!, Lot 100; Julia Clarke kindly informed the author that the ‘Continence of Scipio’ (showing Scipio returning the slave girl he has been awarded to her betrothed in the presence of her pleading parents) is a likely subject (in correspondence, September 1990). The author thanks Ghenete Zelleke for information about the print source, also used on a tea kettle in the Art Institute of Chicago, which she discovered in the Print Room, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
2. The author is grateful to Tamara Preaud for this information.
3. For full biographical details, see Savill, 1988, III, pp. 1009-10.
4. Ibid., p. 1010.
5. Ibid., p. 1132. Rosalind Savill has cast some doubt on the authenticity of the pieces dating between 1765 and 1769 in private correspondence with the writer in January 1991.
No Comparable Examples.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1939
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1939,0304.1
