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Lot Essay
See A. Dawson, French Porcelain, A Catalogue of the Collection of the British Museum, London, 1994, p. 115, no. 103, color plate 16 for a discussion of the technique used to produce the elaborate ground found on the present cuvette. The application of the rose marbré ground was tedious, involving the application of a blue ground over a fired pink ground and the scraping away of the blue to reveal the pink below in a desired marbled pattern. Often subtle differences in the treatment of the rose marbré ground on the long and short sides of pieces of form were used. Given the difficulty and expense of its execution, the factory produced rose marbré for only a few years, with almost all marked pieces executed between 1761 and 1763.
Another cuvette, virtually identical in decoration to the present example but dated 1761 and painted by Micaud, is in the collection of the Petit Palais, Paris. A gift in 1921 from the American collectors Edward and Julia Stell Tuck [inv. Tuck 96], it is published by Marcelle Brunet and Tamara Préaud, Sèvres – des origins à nos jours, Paris, 1978, p. 159, cat. no. 106. These two cuvettes 'Roussel' would appear to be the only examples known with this faux vermiculé marble ground, the oulines of the marblizing formed by graded 'bubbles'.
The present form was previously referred to as a vase 'à compartiments' or 'Choisy', but lacking the compartments. The shape name was re-established as a cuvette à fleurs 'Verdun' in 2014. See C. Froissart, Des Cuvettes Démasqués, The French Porcelain Society, London, 7 June 2014, pp. 1-39.
Jean-Baptiste Noualhier is recorded as a flower painter at the Vincennes and Sèvres manufactory from 1753-54 and 1757-66.
Another cuvette, virtually identical in decoration to the present example but dated 1761 and painted by Micaud, is in the collection of the Petit Palais, Paris. A gift in 1921 from the American collectors Edward and Julia Stell Tuck [inv. Tuck 96], it is published by Marcelle Brunet and Tamara Préaud, Sèvres – des origins à nos jours, Paris, 1978, p. 159, cat. no. 106. These two cuvettes 'Roussel' would appear to be the only examples known with this faux vermiculé marble ground, the oulines of the marblizing formed by graded 'bubbles'.
The present form was previously referred to as a vase 'à compartiments' or 'Choisy', but lacking the compartments. The shape name was re-established as a cuvette à fleurs 'Verdun' in 2014. See C. Froissart, Des Cuvettes Démasqués, The French Porcelain Society, London, 7 June 2014, pp. 1-39.
Jean-Baptiste Noualhier is recorded as a flower painter at the Vincennes and Sèvres manufactory from 1753-54 and 1757-66.