Lot Essay
This inkstand appears in the Sèvres sales ledgers (Vy 4 fol. 199), Livrísons pour l'annee entiere 1769 M. Dulac 1 ecritoire 144 (livres). The form of the present inkstand is a similar to an earlier model, examples of which are in the collection of the Musée du Louvre, Paris, see Svend Eriksen and Geoffrey de Bellaigue, Sèvres Porcelain, Vincennes and Sèvres 1740-1800 (London, 1987), p. 296-7, no. 108, also illustrated by Tamara Préaud and Antoine d'Albis, La Porcelaine de Vincennes (Paris, 1991), p. 189, fig. 223. Another version of the form from the J. Pierpont Morgan Collection is illustrated by Linda H. Roth and Clare Le Corbeiller, French Eigtheenth-Century Porcelain at the Wadsworth Atheneum (Hartford, 2000), pp. 306-7, the authors make reference to a version of this form sold for 144 livres on 23 September 1773 to M. Terranne Bruneau (Vy 5 fol. 92 v°), described as Ecritoire ancienne forme garnie de ses pieces accessoires guirlandes de fleurs et baguettes en or, this would appear to be the closest record to the present example.
Denis Levé was a painter of flowers, patterns and birds at Vincennes and Sèvres active from 1754 to 1793, and from 1795 to 1805.
Denis Levé was a painter of flowers, patterns and birds at Vincennes and Sèvres active from 1754 to 1793, and from 1795 to 1805.