A SEVRES PORCELAIN BLEU NOUVEAU GROUND TWO HANDLED OVAL POT-POURRI VASE

CIRCA 1770, BLUE INTERLACED L MARKS, INCISED FJ

Details

With gilt berried acanthus moulded handles and pierced arcaded neck, probably painted by Jean-Louis Morin with an oval cartouche of sailors and a merchant in a quayside scene, standing beside a bale numbered 47. and a barrel inscribed 11174/A, within tooled gilt ribbon-tied wreath, the other side with figures of sailors on a boat and a fisherman, before turreted buildings in maritime landscape, on a domed foot gilt with swags of laurel
11 1/4 in. (28.5 cm.) wide
Provenance

Possibly acquired by George IV from Mme Craufurd in May 1820.
Mrs. H. Dupuy; Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 3 April 1948, lot 397 (collection no. 234 according to paper label).
Frederick J. and Antoinette H. Van Slyke; Sotheby’s, New York, 26 September 1989, lot 320 (collection no. 20 according to paper label).
Madame Djahanguir Riahi; Sotheby's, Paris, 6 July 2007, lot 102.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 29 June 2018, lot 7.
Literature

Geoffrey de Bellaigue, Ibid., 2009, Vol. I, pp. 252-253.
Exhibited

Baltimore, Maryland, The Walters Art Gallery, European Pottery and Porcelain of the XVIII Century From Maryland Private Collections, 4 June - 16 October 1948.
Lot Essay

The present pot-pourri vase is the pair to the example in the Royal Collection; it is of the same form, with closely related harbour scenes that are attributed to Jean-Louis Morin, see Geoffrey de Bellaigue, French Porcelain in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, London, 2009, Vol. I, cat. no. 50, pp. 250-253. Two pot-pourri vases were acquired by George IV from the widow of Quintin Craufurd.1 They are recorded on a bill dated May 1820: '2 Vases oval medaillons de Marine et païsage' where they appear alongside a number of items of porcelain acquired from Madame Craufurd by the King at a total cost of 52,000 francs.2 What remains unclear is whether the present vase was acquired as one of the pair by George IV from Madame Craufurd in 1820, or whether the reference to the pair, actually relates to a vase of similar form, but without the pierced neck, which is in the Royal Collection, see Geoffrey de Bellaigue, Ibid., 2009, cat. no. 51, p. 254. Bellaigue states that 'if this was indeed the case, the genuine pair to cat. no. 50 (the present lot) must have become separated from its counterpart some time before its acquisition by Quintin Craufurd (d.1819).'3
Marine scenes similar to those on the present vase, some of which bear the painter's mark of Jean-Louis Morin, appear with some minor variations on other documented vases, these include a garniture of three pot-pourri vases, dated 1780-81 and with painter's marks for Morin, which are in the collection of Upton House, see Svend Eriksen and Geoffrey de Bellaigue, Sèvres Porcelain, London, 1987, pp. 335-336, no. 145 a,b. In his research on the vase in the Royal Collection, Bellaigue suggests that the painting of the landscape on the other side of the vase is most likely to be by Jean Bouchet (active at Sèvres from 1757 to 93) who specialised in landscape scenes of this type.
There is some uncertainty as to the identification of the shape in Sèvres factory records. It might be the vase 'pot pourri oval uni', which is attributed to Jean-Claude Duplessis père. This shape was introduced in 1765 at a price of 42 livres for an undecorated example. Rosalind Savill illustrates the plaster model attributed to Duplessis and she discusses two 'pot pourris ovales' with a bleu nouveau ground, which were sold to Louis XV for 528 livres each in 1766, see The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, London, 1988, Vol. I, C.278, p. 267.
1.Quintin Craufurd (1743-1819), was a Scot who settled in Paris. He made his fortune working for the East India Company and was also employed by the British Government as a secret agent and army supplier. He was an author of a number of books relating to India, Ancient Greece and French history. He helped to facilitate the flight from Paris of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette and other members of the French royal family following the outbreak of the Revolution.
2. Geoffrey de Bellaigue, 'George IV and Quintin Craufurd, A Shared Taste', French Porcelain Society Journal, Vol. III, 2007, Fig. 5, p. 232 for the 'Cruford' list of purchases by George IV and Figures 10 & 11 for the vases in the Royal Collection.
3. Geoffrey de Bellaigue, Ibid., 2009, Vol. I, p. 253.

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