A SEVRES PORCELAIN GREEN-GROUND OVAL SUGAR-BOWL, COVER AND FIXED STAND PROBABLY FROM THE SERVICE MADE FOR THE DUKE OF PARMA (SUCRIER DE 'MONSIEUR LE PREMIER')

CIRCA 1765, BLUE INTERLACED L MARKS ENCLOSING DATE LETTER M, PAINTER'S MARK PROBABLY FOR JEAN-BAPTISTE NOUALHIER

Details

Of lobed oval form, painted with flowers-sprays within tooled gilt flower and palm frond cartouches, within gilt dentil rims
9 1/8in. (23 cm.) wide
Provenance

Probably part of the service acquired by Claude Bonnet on 14 May 1765, as agent and intermediary in the purchase of the service for Filippo, Duke of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla (1720-65).
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, Paris, 14 April 2010, lot 147.
Literature

David Peters, Ibid., 2015, Vol. II, p. 370.
Lot Essay

The present sucrier probably formed part of a large fond vert dessert service delivered to Claude Bonnet on 14 May 1765, an agent in Paris, who acted as an intermediary in the purchase of the service for Filippo, Duke of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla (1720-65), husband of Louise-Elisabeth of France (1727-1759), Duchess of Parma, daughter of King Louis XV and Marie Leszczyńska of France. The service was accompanied by a large number of teawares and biscuit figures at a total cost 22,974 livres. The Duke of Parma died shortly after the delivery of the service, but it remained in Parma with his successor, Ferdinando. A large part of the service is included in an inventory of items in the 'office et Gobelet de S.A.R.' on 15 October 1768 as 'Un Service de porcelain de Sève, verd en bord doré' where the components and quantities of wares correspond to the 1765 delivery to Bonnet. David Peters discusses the service in detail where he notes that the delivery included six sucriers (later identified as sucriers de 'M. le Premier') at a cost of 168 livres each, see Sèvres Plates and Services of the Eighteenth Century, Little Berkhamsted, 2015, Vol. II, pp. 369-370.
Where marked, the majority of this service is dated 1763,1764 and 1765 and is now in the Palazzo del Quirinale, Rome, see Alessandra Ghidoli, Il patrimonio artistico del Quirinale, Le vaselle, Milan, 2000, pp. 113-149 (Inv. DP 1956 1097-1132). Ghidoli records two sucriers de 'M. le Premier' in the Palazzo del Quirinale, one is apparently marked with date letter H for circa 1761 and the other with date letter K for circa 1763 (see Inv. DP 1109 and DP 1111). It seems probable that the present lot could be one of the four sucriers from the 1765 delivery which are not recorded in Rome. Peters discusses a small group of wares dated 1765, with corresponding decoration that may be associated with the Duke of Parma service, see the 1765 assiette à palmes in the British Museum (accession no. 1899,1006.9) and an assiette à palmes in the Art Institute of Chicago (accession no. 1966.504). See also the group of related wares from the Rothschild Collection, sold Christie's, New York on 13 October 2023, lot 400.
This form of sugar bowl and stand was introduced in 1758 and it was named for the premier écuyer, Henri-Camille, marquis de Béringhen (1693-1770) who served as one of the most important officers in the French royal household. He had the particular honour of assisting the King to get into his carriage or on his horse. See Linda H. Roth and Clare Le Corbeiller, French Eighteenth Century Porcelain at Wadsworth Atheneum, Wadsworth, 2000, p. 277, cat. no. 142 for a pair of sugar-bowls, covers and fixed stands of this form.
Jean-Baptiste Noualhier (l'aîné) was a painter of flowers at Vincennes and Sèvres from 1753 to 1755 and from 1757 to 1766.

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