Sèvres Porcelain
H.13 3/4 W.9 1/2 in
Further images
Literature
Four services with decoration described as 'Japon' were sold by the Sèvres manufactory from 1778 to 1780. It has been plausibly suggested that 'Japon' corresponds to a type of Imari decoration of underglaze blue and overglaze red with gilding, found on a very small number of pieces known at present.
There are astonishingly few examples of this scheme of decoration in known collections considering we know that not one but four services were created.
The first service of this description was bought by Queen Marie-Antoinette in 1777 [Peters 77-7], apparently as a gift for her mother, the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. It included two ' soupières ' costing 168 livres each but from that price they could not be tureens of this more elaborate shape.
The second service was bought by Madame Denis, possibly Voltaire’s niece, but it did not include tureens [Peters 78-4].
Both of the last two services of this decoration included four ' pots à oglio et terrines et leur plateaux ' at 720 livres each. So this could be one of the oval tureens from each of those services.
The third service was purchased by Louis-René-Édouard de Rohan, the Cardinal de Guéménée , better known as the Cardinal de Rohan (1734-1803) [Peters 79-1]. He was the protagonist of the Diamond Necklace affair
The fourth service of this design was purchased by Guiseppe, Principe Doria Pamphilj (1751-1816) [Peters 80-2]. He was the Papal Nuncio in Paris from 1773 to 1785.
Since the price with white ground and simple flower decoration of a pot à oille (round shape) or terrine (oval shape, like the present piece) was at least 300 livres, the present object must have been quite a bit more expensive, as it has a both lavish ground colour and rich gilding.
All of the pieces from the latter two services mentioned in the factory kiln records are recorded as gilded by Weydinger. There is no mention of tureens in 1778 kiln firings for the Cardinal de Guéménée service, they are only listed in the sales records. For the Doria Pamphilj service, however, Weydinger is mentioned as the gilder of the tureens both in the overtime records and in the kiln records.
It is therefore marginally more convincing that our tureen is a candidate to come from the 1780 Doria Pamphilj service unless more examples are found also with a gilder's mark for one of the Weydinger family.