A SÈVRES FRISE COLORÉ DÉJEUNER HÉBERT

A SÈVRES FRISE COLORÉ DÉJEUNER HÉBERT

Circa 1765
Incised marks
Inventory mark in red on the tray 67/32, traces of red marks on other pieces

Only two other Plateau ‘Hébert’ à anses of the largest size are known, one in the Wadsworth Athenaeum[i], and the other in the Musée des Arts Decoratif, Paris[ii]. The difficulty in firing such a large flat tray would have been a considerable challenge. The plaster model for the tray survives at Sèvres.[iii]

The decoration is a spectacular variant of a frises colorées or frises riches and of much greater elaboration of design and quality than is usual. John Whitehead has alerted me to un unpublished design in the Archive of the Manufacture de Sèvres by Jean-Claude Duplessis for a large plateau (apparently never executed) which incorporates similar radiating designs in its spandrels.

It was painted by one of Sèvres’ most skilled painters, perhaps Louis-Jean Thévenet (père or l’aîné) who was a painter of flowers and patterns and was active at Vincennes and Sèvres from 1741 to 1778. According to Cyrille Froissart the very sharp small flower bell-shaped with three petals are quite characteristic.

The services is comprised of:
Tray (Plateau ‘Hébert’ à anses premier grandeur), 45.6 cm wide, 33.8 cm deep
Teapot and cover, Théière ‘Calabre’, 12.1 cm high
Cream jug, pot à lait ‘à trois pieds’ 12.0 cm high
Sugar bowl and cover, pot à sucre ‘Hébert’
Four cups and saucers, gobelet ’Calabre’ et soucoupe (one cup a modern hard paste replacement) cup 6.9 cm high, saucer 13.7 cm diam.

Incised marks:
Tray (Plateau ‘Hébert’ à anses premier grandeur), no mark
Teapot: curly ‘d’
Cream jug, pot à lait ‘à trois pieds’, no mark
Sugar bowl and cover, ‘I’
The cups, each with ‘S’ and ‘OO’
The saucers with ‘S’ or cursive ‘E’

Condition:
Tray: One handle of the tray has original firing cracks but has not been off, there is some original factory repair which has been touched in. Two areas of gold filet around the foot rim on the reverse have been touched in
Teapot and cover: finial restored
Cream jug: chip to tip of raised leaf
Sugar bowl and cover: losses to leaves at finial

References:

Roth & Le Corbeiller 2000
Linda H. Roth & Clare Le Corbeiller, French Eighteenth-Century Porcelain at the Wadsworth Atheneum. The J. Pierpont Morgan Collection, Hartford 2000, pp. 184-186

Louvre 1995
Musee du Louvre Nouvelles acquisitions du département des Objets d’art 1990-1994, (1995), p. 182, no. 71a

 

SOLD

 

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[i] Accession no. 1917.1022, Roth & Le Corbeiller 2000, pp. 184-186

[ii] MAD inv. 31888

[iii] Roth & Le Corbeiller 2000, pp. 184-186