Literature

Gilt mark of interlaced Ls, date-letter ee for 1782, decorator’s mark L. for Louis-François L’Ecot (active 1763-65, 1772-1802).

This is a large gobelet Litron et soucoupe of the first size with outstanding 'jeweling' of gold foils and drops of enamels over the bleu nouveau ground colour.

This is a large example of a gobelet Litron et soucoupe of a classic 'jewelled' pattern with date letters that are just what one would hope before pickcing it up to check.

There is a very similar cup in the British Royal Collection, with a replacement saucer. It has the same marks as this example and is formed with the same gold foils and enamelled 'jewelled' although on the Royal Collection Cup the swags are doubled compared to this example [RCN 58189].

The present example was noted by Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue as a closely comparable example to that in the British Royal Collection. He also noted that a similar example with turquoise-blue (bleu céleste) ground was sold from the celebrated René Fribourg collection in the 1960s.

The British Royal Collection has one of the finest collections of these large dark-blue ground cups and saucers of the 1780s often with 'jewelled' decoration. There is also a castle in the North of England with an un-published collection of similar pieces.

Steel dies were commissioned by the Sèvres porcelain manufactory from 1780 to 1785 to allow gold foils to be stamped into the shapes there were then enamelled to create this type of 'jewelled' decoration. De Bellaigue thought that the die used for entwined ribbon motif found on this cup may have been cut by Jean-Pascal Le Guay described as 'un autre [poinon] réprésentant une frise droitte a ruban garnie de perles en dédans partagée par une feuille d'ornement ejoignante[,] un panneau tenant au Ruban le tout pour l'emaille'.

Clearly this high-level 'jewelling' is often linked to Joseph Coteau and indeed he signed some with these small-scale fine patterns, but also such work was brilliantly achieved also by Philippe Parpette. De Bellaigue noted that Coteau can be associated through documents to the decoration of a Sèvres porcelain egg in the Musée Cognaq-Jay in Paris which has this same scheme of decoration.