A PAIR OF SEVRES PORCELAIN PLATES PROBABLY FROM THE LOUIS XV 'ATTRIBUTS ET GROSEILLES' SERVICE (ASSIETTES 'A GROSEILLES')

CIRCA 1763-71, INCISED LX AND DG MARKS

Details

Each painted with a garland of flowers to the centre, the border with trophies alternating with gilt moulded berried leafy branches, the border with overlapping blue ground, within gilt line rim
9 1/2 in. (24 cm.) wide
Provenance

Probably delivered to the château de Versailles for Louis XV, King of France in 1763.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 12 March 1990, lot 9.
D.B. Wilson; sale Christie's, New York, 24 October 2012, lot 159 (with C0068 Wilson Collection labels).
Anonymous sale; Claude Aguttes, Paris, 28 May 2015, lot 229.
Literature

David Peters, Ibid., 2015, Vol. II, p. 356.
Lot Essay

Appearing in the December 1763 credit sales for Versailles as purchased by King Louis XV, 'au Roy', this service was supplemented several times by both Louis XV and Louis XVI. The 1763 purchase and the later supplements included wares in the 'attribu(t)s et groiseiles' design for use at the château de Versailles and wares in the 'guirlandes' design; the latter ordered as supplements to a service purchased by Louis XV in 1757 for use at the château de Fontainebleau. David Peter discusses the 1763 delivery, which probably included some of the assiettes in the 'attribu(t)s et groiseiles' design at a cost of 24 livres each, see Sèvres Plates and Services of the Eighteenth Century, Little Berkhamsted, 2015, Vol. II, pp. 353-356. Later supplements included 6 assiettes 'à groseilles' at a cost of 24 livres each in 1769 and 48 assiettes 'à groseilles' at the same price in 1771. Peters records the likely remnant of this service, described as 'Service à Trophées' listed in two parts in a château de Versailles inventory of January 1782 in the Archives Nationales (AN O1 3510). One part is titled 'Porcelaine en Magasin et dont est Chargé Richard' and includes 8 assiettes à fruits (assiettes 'à groseilles'), see Peters, ibid., 2015, Vol. II, p. 355. However, it is likely that by this time, the design had become outmoded and that any breakages were probably replaced by wares with different decoration.
Six plates from this service are in the Musée national de Céramique at Sèvres (R.736,737); an undated plate is in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (TH1158) and another, also undated, is the the collection of the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Peters also refers to seven assiettes 'à groseilles' sold at Christie's on 6 April 1875, lot 55 which includes one example inscribed 'Le Sieur, Aout, 1763'.