CIRCA 1868, IRON-RED CROWNED N MARK FOR 1868, INCISED POTTER’S DS-59-12 AND 2 DS-62-5 MARKS, SIGNED D. DE C FOR DELPHINE DE COOL, THE GILDING RECORDED AS BEING BY G. DERICHWEILER

Born in Limoges in 1830, Delphine de Cool (née Fortin) was a prolific artist on porcelain and enamels in the late 19th century. For half a century (1858-1908) she is documented exhibiting her works at various Salons and Expositions in Paris and abroad, including in London and in Vienna. At the 1893 Chicago Universal Exhibition, both her paintings and works on porcelain were exhibited in the Women's Building as part of a special envoy of French female artists, and her treatise was published in the Women's Library. She is recorded as a painter at the Sèvres manufactory from 1860-70.

The subjects on the present pair of impressive vases were painted by de Cool after known Old Masters. The first is after Charles de la Fosse's (1636-1716) ‘The Triumph of Bacchus’, located at the Musée du Louvre, Paris. The second is after a bacchic scene by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden (inventory no. GK 459). The Sèvres archives note that de Cool was paid in several installments in 1868, and the vases were registered in the Sèvres "Appréciation des pièces décorées entrées au Magasin de vente" on 21 May 1870.

For another pair of vases 'Carafe Étrusque' in this unusually large size at the Musée National du Château Compiègne, see B. Ducrot, Porcelaines et Terres de Sèvres, Paris, 1993, pp. 212-3, no. 160.