- Museum number
- 1948,1203.8
- Description
-
Tray (plateau 'tiroir' à jours); soft-paste porcelain; openwork border of scrolls, tulips and leaves painted in pink, green and blue enamels, the scrolls additionally decorated with tiny coloured and gilt dots; on the exterior surface the pierced border has been outlined with gilding but is uncoloured; the edge of the tray is painted with a scroll design in blue, green, pink and gold enclosed between narrow pink bands interrupted by diagonal green lines outlined by blue dots; in the centre is a pastoral scene depicting two lovers, sheep and third person; after Boucher, painted in colours and framed by a gilt line tooled with criss-cross design; maker's mark.
- Production date
- 1766
- Dimensions
-
Length: 24.50 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Dawson 1994
The tray is the first or largest of two sizes with this border. For a discussion of the form, see reg. no. 1948,1203.39.
The painted scene is based on ‘Le Pasteur galant’ by François Boucher engraved by A. Laurent in 1742.(1) An engraving of the subject inscribed in what is probably an eighteenth-century hand is in the Sèvres factory archive.(2) The subject was first used in the Hôtel de Soubise, Paris, and was painted around 1739. It was soon used as the source for a Vincennes group of 1750-2 and subsequently inspired J.J. Kaendler at Meissen.(3) It can be found painted on other pieces made at Sèvres, such as a ‘rose marbré cuvette Courteille’ dated 1761.(4) The decorative scheme found on the openwork border was used as a painted border on a ‘cuvette Verdun’ dated 1764.(5) Its popularity persisted and it can be found on a saucer painted by Chabry dated 1768(6) in the Jones Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, as an all-over decoration on a ‘boîte a savonnette’ of 1770 in the Louvre Museum(7) and on a water jug and basin dated 1770 at The National Trust, Clandon Park.(8)
For biographical details of Etienne-Jean Chabry fils (b. before 1749) a painter, gilder and burnisher at Sèvres from 1764-87, who specialised in pastoral and rustic scenes after Boucher, see Savill.(9)
The incised mark ‘jf’ has been traced on a number of pieces between around 1755 and 1768 but remains unidentified.(10) The incised mark ‘fc’ may perhaps have been used by Farcy, a ‘mouleur en pâte’ employed between 1769 and 1798, although the date of this tray leaves this in doubt.(11)
(1) Jean-Richard, Pierrette, ‘L’œuvre gravé de François Boucher dans la collection Edmond Rothschild’, Paris, 1978, no. 313.
(2) Reproduced by Sassoon, 1991, p. 163, who illustrates and discusses a plaque for a tabletop dated 1761 and painted by Dodin in the Getty Museum, Malibu, California, pp. 162-5.
(3) See catalogue compiled by T. Burollet, ‘Porcelaines’, Musée Cognac-Jay, Paris, 1983, no. 25; Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. C. 50-1962.
(4) Sold Christie's, 6 October 1986, Lot 257. Sassoon, 1991, pp. 162-3 lists other pieces painted with this scene.
(5) Sold Christie's, 28 October 1963, Lot 131.
(6) Victoria and Albert Museum, London, ‘Catalogue of the Jones Collection’, Part II, 1924, compiled by W. King, no. 129.
(7) Illus. P. Verlet, ‘Sèvres’, Paris, 1953, pl. 70a.
(8) Illus. J. Cushion, ‘Continental Porcelain’, London, revised ed., 1982, pl. 50.
(9) Savill, Rosalind, ‘The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, London’, London, 1988, III, pp. 1017-18.
(10) Dauterman, Cark C., ‘Sèvres Porcelain, Makers and Marks of the Eighteenth Century’, New York, 1986, p. 207.
(11) Op. cit., p. 194, 78.
Exhibited: 1929, 'La Porcelaine Française de 1673 à 1914', Paris, Pavilion de Marsan, November-December 1929, no. 747.
No Comparable Examples.
Literature: Tait, Hugh, ‘Porcelain’, London, 1962, pl. XLII; revised ed. 1972, pl. 42; T. Burollet, ‘Porcelaines’, cat. Musée Cognac-Jay, Paris, 1983, no. 25, p. 76; Sassoon Adrian, ‘Vincennes and Sèvres Porcelain, Catalogue of the Collections, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California, 1991’, Malibu (Calif.), 1991, p. 164.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1948
- Acquisition notes
- Mme Dhainaut Colln, sold Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 19 May 1924, Lot 27, sold to Hodgkins for 8,300 francs; E M Hodgkins Colln 1929; Bequeathed by Sir B Eckstein, Bt., 1948.
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1948,1203.8
