A SEVRES PORCELAIN PLATE FROM THE SERVICE GIVEN BY LOUIS XVI TO THE DUKE OF SACHSEN-TESCHEN (ASSIETTE UNIE)

CIRCA 1785, INTERLACED BLUE L MARKS, DATE LETTER HH AND PAINTER’S MARK FOR BOUILLAT (PERE) OR MME BOUILLAT

Details

The centre painted with a bouquet of pink roses and blue cornflowers, within a circular blue and gilt seeded cartouche edged with puce lappets and gilt husks, the border with six circular gilt tooled cartouches of pansies and garden flowers joined by a purple and gilt line entwined with flowers, within gilt rim
9 1/2 in. (24 cm.) wide
Provenance

Presented by Louis XVI on 28 August 1786 to S.A.S. le Duc de Saxe-Teschen (1738-1822).
Lot Essay

This service is listed in the Sales Registers amongst 'Présents faits par le Roi à S.A.S. le Duc De Saxe-Teschen' and was given via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from Louis XVI to Prince Albert of Saxony, Duke of Teschen. The Duke was travelling in France in 1786 with his wife, the Archduchess Maria Christina, under the pseudonyms comte and comtesse de Bely and the service was a gift on the occasion of their visit to France. The service was likely used by the Duke at his residence at the Palace of Laeken (Schooenbergh), near Brussels.
David Peters discuss the service and its various components which included 72 assiettes at a cost of 36 livres each; it was accompanied by biscuit groups, table decorations and a bronze-mounted table at a total cost of 23,476 livres, see Sèvres Plates and Service of the Eighteenth Century, Little Berkhamsted, 2015, Vol. IV, pp. 799-801. The service was one in a series of gifts to members of the House of Habsburg and it appears to have been partly made up from factory stock. A smaller service of the same type was delivered to George John, 2nd Earl Spencer in 1786 and another was supplied to Madame de Peire in the same year.
Edme-François Bouillat (père) was a painter of flowers and birds at Sèvres from 1758 to 1810 and Genévieve-Louise Mme Bouillat (née Thévenet) was a painter of flowers at Sèvres from 1776 to 1798.