A SEVRES PORCELAIN GREEN-GROUND PLATE (ASSIETTE A PALMES)

CIRCA 1757, BLUE INTERLACED L MARKS ENCLOSING DATE LETTER D, PAINTER'S MARK FOR LOUIS-JEAN THEVENET (PERE)

Details

The centre painted with a loose bouquet of fruit and flowers, the border with four vignettes of birds in landscape within gilt scroll and diaper pattern foliate cartouches, within shaped gilt rim
9 7/8 in. (25.2 cm.) wide
Provenance

Baron Gustave de Rothschild, Paris and thence by descent.
Lot Essay

Three green ground services decorated with various combinations of flowers and birds were produced at the Sèvres factory during the period 1757-59. The first, listed as a service 'de porcelaine de France, en vert, peint à figures, fleurs & oiseaux' is recorded in the Livre-Journal of the Paris marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux on 7 March 1758 and was delivered to the abbé-comte de Bernis, Minister of Foreign Affairs, as intermediary in the gift of the service from King Louis XV of France to Frederick V, King of Denmark. The service was decorated in a new green ground-colour and featured various combinations of birds in landscape, bouquets of flowers, putti and garlands. This lavish diplomatic gift was in response to a gift of stallions given by Frederick V to Louis XV in 1757. Costing a total of 34,542 livres and 5 sous, the service was presented on 22 May 1758 in Copenhagen to Frederick V by Jean-François Ogier d'Enonville, président honoraire of the Parlement of Paris and Ambassador Extraordinary of France to Denmark. The Duvaux Livre-Journal sales entry no. 3068 records 96 assiettes at a cost of 60 livres each, however, 24 plates from the 96 were diverted prior to the delivery to de Bernis. It is possible that the 24 plates formed a distinct set which is why they were separated from the delivery to Frederick V. Rosalind Savill suggests that they may have been acquired by Madame de Pompadour, either from Duvaux or perhaps as a gift from Louis XV. A posthumous inventory of the effects of Madame de Pompadour following her death in 1764 record 23 assiettes 'à bord verd',1see Rosalind Savill, Everyday Rococo, Madame de Pompadour & Sèvres Porcelain, 2021, Norwich, Vol. II, p. 661 and fig.15.5. However, there are no records of Madame de Pompadour directly purchasing any assiettes of this description in the Sèvres Sales Registers.
A second and much smaller service described as 'un petit service de porcelain de France, en vert' was purchased by Louis XV in March 1758, through the marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux, which included 12 assiettes, at a cost of 60 livres each, see David Peters, Sèvres Plates and Services of the Eighteenth Century, Little Berkhamsted, 2015, Vol. II, p. 307. A third green-ground service was sold on 16 May 1759 to César-Gabriel, comte de Choiseul, later duc de Choiseul-Praslin, which included 72 assiettes, see Peters, Ibid., 2015, Vol. II, pp. 317-318.
Peters discusses the characteristic bluish tone to the green border, which can be seen on the present plate and which is associated with the Frederick V of Denmark service. He also notes that several assiettes of different types are known, with variations in the combination of decoration, the number of cartouches to the border and with different gilding patterns, and many of these are associated with the Frederick V of Denmark service. A large part of the Frederick V of Denmark service is in the collection of the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, see N.Y. Birioukova and N.I. Kazakevitch, Hermitage Collection Catalogue, St. Petersburg, 2005, no. 41, for an illustration of a plate with flowers to the centre and birds to the border.
A group of related green-ground wares from the Rothschild Collection were sold at Christie's, New York on 13 October 2023, see lots 386-389, lot 391 and 394.
Louis-Jean Thévenet (pére) was a painter of birds in the early 1750s and subsequently a painter of flowers and patterns.
1. See Jean-Cordey, Inventaire des biens de Madame de Pompadour, 1939, p. 63, n° 705.

Read more