Literature

This broth bowl, cover and stand was made for serving a warm soup. It is one of very few known with this lavish pink (rose) ground colour. The painting of pastoral scenes was a speciality of the Sèvres porcelain painter André-Vincent Vielliard (active at Vincennes and Sèvres 1752-90). These are exceptionally fine and elaborate scenes in his œuvre.

This piece was in the collection formed by Baron Meyer de Rothschild (1818-1874), for the treasure house he created of Mentmore Towers, Buckinghamshire. It went by descent to his daughter Hannah de Rothschild (1851-1890) who in 1878 married Archibald, 5th Earl of Rosebery - Prime Minister of England 1894-95, and by descent to his grandson

Neil Primrose, 7th Earl of Rosebery 1929-2024), It was sold amongst the contents of Mentmore Towers, Sotheby's, on the premises, 24 May 1977, lot 2054 and purchased by the British Railways Pension Fund who in turn lent it to the J. Paul Getty Museum in the 1980s.

Having no date letter on this piece we have to date it according to other known pieces with similar decoration or those in the factory's records. On 28th December 1759 Madame Victoire, a daughter of Louis XV, purchased an écuelle with rose ground for 300 livres from the end of year sales presentation at Versailles but we do not know how it was painted. So such pieces with pink ground were in production from 1759.

There is Sèvres porcelain écuelle ronde on a plateau ronde in The Wallace Collection in London with pink ground and scenes of birds in landscapes with a similar pink ground and fairly similar gilded patterns [C424-5]. It has the date letter G for 1760.