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Lot Essay
Twenty-two vases were produced at Sèvres between 1768 and 1770 with fleurs incrusté decoration. Of these, all but five are in public collections. Of these five, the location of three is unclear.
Seven vases are known with purely fruit and flower painting, fifteen also with grisaille panels. Of the seven, the group in which the present vase belongs, five are in public collections. The seven are:
The present unmarked vase à cordes
A vase à glands with a painter's mark for Micaud, sold Sotheby's, London, 15 November 1994, lot 100 (this vase used as the basis for the attribution the painting on the present example to Micaud).
A vase à panneaux and a pair of vases oeufs forming a garniture now in the collection of the Palace of the Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the gift of Archer M. Huntington in 1927 [1927.184a-b].
A pair of vases Bachelier from the Wernher Collection, formerly at Luton Hoo and now at the Rangers House, London.
The remaining fifteen, described in the records as simply vases d'ornements, were purchased by Louis XV in December 1769. These are likely a group with incrusté decoration further enriched by the addition of panels painted with mythological and Antique subjects by Genest. Twelve have been identified in public collections. The location of three - a vase octagone and a pair of vases Chinois - is unknown. See Rosalind Savill, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, London, 1988, vol. I, cat. nos. C311-313 for a detailed discussion of the vases likely to have made up this royal purchase and their current whereabouts.
The technique of decoration used on these twenty-two vases - fleurs incrusté on a bleu Fallot ground - was developed by a worker of that name in the ground-color workshop, later a painter, gilder, burnisher and enameler, active at Sèvres from 1764. The rich blue ground is often gilt with oeil-de-perdrix and decorated in enamel colors with fruit and flowers in areas where the colored ground has been scraped away. Related in technique to the rose marbré ground produced at the factory circa 1763, it too was extremely work intensive and expensive, thus its production shortlived. The incrusté style of flower painting was later copied by the Paris factories of La Courtille and Samson.
See M. Brunet and T. Préaud, Sèvres des origines à nos jours, Paris, 1978, pp. 96-97, fig. 185; R. Savill, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, London, 1988, vol. I, C210-211, C311-313.
Seven vases are known with purely fruit and flower painting, fifteen also with grisaille panels. Of the seven, the group in which the present vase belongs, five are in public collections. The seven are:
The present unmarked vase à cordes
A vase à glands with a painter's mark for Micaud, sold Sotheby's, London, 15 November 1994, lot 100 (this vase used as the basis for the attribution the painting on the present example to Micaud).
A vase à panneaux and a pair of vases oeufs forming a garniture now in the collection of the Palace of the Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the gift of Archer M. Huntington in 1927 [1927.184a-b].
A pair of vases Bachelier from the Wernher Collection, formerly at Luton Hoo and now at the Rangers House, London.
The remaining fifteen, described in the records as simply vases d'ornements, were purchased by Louis XV in December 1769. These are likely a group with incrusté decoration further enriched by the addition of panels painted with mythological and Antique subjects by Genest. Twelve have been identified in public collections. The location of three - a vase octagone and a pair of vases Chinois - is unknown. See Rosalind Savill, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, London, 1988, vol. I, cat. nos. C311-313 for a detailed discussion of the vases likely to have made up this royal purchase and their current whereabouts.
The technique of decoration used on these twenty-two vases - fleurs incrusté on a bleu Fallot ground - was developed by a worker of that name in the ground-color workshop, later a painter, gilder, burnisher and enameler, active at Sèvres from 1764. The rich blue ground is often gilt with oeil-de-perdrix and decorated in enamel colors with fruit and flowers in areas where the colored ground has been scraped away. Related in technique to the rose marbré ground produced at the factory circa 1763, it too was extremely work intensive and expensive, thus its production shortlived. The incrusté style of flower painting was later copied by the Paris factories of La Courtille and Samson.
See M. Brunet and T. Préaud, Sèvres des origines à nos jours, Paris, 1978, pp. 96-97, fig. 185; R. Savill, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, London, 1988, vol. I, C210-211, C311-313.