Sèvres soft paste porcelain vase. Green ground with gilt decoration, oval shape with layered serrated lip and applied myrtle branches in relief, looped to the top to form handles, splayed circular foot. Front oval reserve painted with polychrome basket of flowers on a shelf.

In the 1760s, the Sèvres Porcelain Factory focused on a form of painted decoration using single or interlocking flower and leaf wreaths in twos and threes. These were confined to the subsidiary reserves on the back and ends of vases. The flower-wreath painter, Jean-Baptiste Tandart (fl. Sèvres 1754–1803), was particularly renowned for this style of decoration, and records show that he was paid overtime for painting wreaths. Whereas the decoration on the front of such vases usually included scenes inspired by contemporary artists, the reserves on wreathed vases included bouquets of garden flowers, including convolvulus, asters, speedwell, tulips and hollyhocks.

On this piece even the myrtle branch mounts demonstrate botanical influence.

Text adapted from Painting Paradise: The Art of the Garden, London, 2015.