Vase à bâtons rompus 1772
Soft-paste porcelain, bleu nouveau ground, gilded decoration and gilt bronze | .1 39.5 x 21.5 x 16.2, .2 39.8 x 21.6 x 16.3 cm (parts .a and .b together) | RCIN 36103
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The oval reserves on this pair of vases are painted on the front with mythological scenes of Leda and Endymion, and on the reverse sides with bunches of fruit and flowers suspended on a ribbon.
Leda, who is about to be seduced by Zeus in the guise of a swan, reclines on turquoise blue drapery. In a moonlit scene, Endymion, whose beauty so enraptured Silene (the moon) that she condemned him to eternal sleep so that she could kiss him, lies on an animal skin, watched over by his hound.
Both scenes are copied from engravings by Nicolas de Launay (1739-92) after the painter Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre (c.1713-89).
Text adapted from French Porcelain for English Palaces, Sèvres from the Royal Collection, London, 2009Provenance
Probably formed part of a three-piece garniture with the vase Angora which George IV bought from Robert Fogg for £346 10s (bill dated the quarter ending 10 October 1813: ‘Three Sève Porcelaine Vases fine blue ground and painted in Mythological Subjects’). Their receipt at Carlton House in October 1813 from Fogg was entered by Benjamin Jutsham in the receipts’ ledger: ‘Three handsome Seve Porcelain Vases Blue ground and Gold painted in Figures, Mythological Subjects, the Centre one has A Bird, A Dog, & A Squirrel for handles’, annotated, ‘now in the Bow Room Basement Story’. Recorded in 1826 in the Bow Room, Principal Floor, Carlton House: ‘A pair of blue Seve Porcelain Vases and covers, fluted top and bottom, with Oval shaped handles in white and gold, two compartments painted in mythological figures & flowers 15 ½ In. high’.
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Creator(s)
(porcelain manufacturer)(nationality)(engraver)Acquirer(s)
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Medium and techniques
Soft-paste porcelain, bleu nouveau ground, gilded decoration and gilt bronze
Measurements
.1 39.5 x 21.5 x 16.2, .2 39.8 x 21.6 x 16.3 cm (parts .a and .b together)
Category
Object type(s)
Other number(s)
Laking PC : Laking, G.F., 1907. Sèvres Porcelain of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, London – Laking PC 131Place of Production
Sèvres [France]
