Sèvres - Lot 244

Sèvres A sample plate, a project for the Arabesque service created for King Louis XVI, with a contoured rim, in hard porcelain, decorated in grisaille in the center with an antique figure in a medallion with a blue background surrounded by a parasol motif, the wing decorated with three braids, one with a blue background adorned with florets and foliage, the second with a yellow background adorned with a frieze of Grecques in green, the third with a purple background adorned with florets and foliage. the third with a crimson background decorated with flowers. Marked: LL interlaced, letter-date EE for 1782, mark of painter Nicolas Schradre (active in Sèvres from 1773 to 1785). 18th century, 1782 D. 23.5 cm. This sample plate from 1782 is of great interest because, in addition to its aesthetic qualities, it was the starting point for the design of the Arabesque Service. In 1783, the Sèvres manufactory began production of two services for King Louis XVI, each in a very different style. One, the Service Mythologique, is decorated with mythological scenes and rich gilding on a beautiful blue background. It is now mainly kept at Windsor Castle. The other, the Arabesque Service, is decorated in the style then known as arabesque or Etruscan, based on the decoration of the Vatican Lodges created in the early 16th century under Raphael's supervision. The Vatican Loggia engravings produced between 1770 and 1777 under the direction of Giovanni Volpato, of which Louis XVI had a three-volume copy in his Versailles library, were to serve as sources for this new service (see John Whitehead, "The Sevres 'Arabesque' service and the Vatican Loggia engravings", the French Porcelain Society Journal, vol. III, 2007, pp. 151-165). The Count d'Angiviller, Director of the Bâtiments du Roi, who initiated the service, called on the architect and engineer Louis Le Masson to design the forms "taken from those of the most severe antique taste and decorated with Raphael's superb arabesques". He wanted the service to "set a new standard in the manufacture by its novelty and execution". (see Yvonne de Guillebon-Le Masson and John Whitehead, Louis Le Masson, François Le Masson, Deux frères architecte et sculpteur, 2022, p. 122 and David Peters, Sèvres plates and services of the 18th century, 2015, p. 111, n°. 95-6). On February 2, 1783, Jean-Etienne de Montucla, premier commis des Bâtiments du comte d'Angiviller, addressed Régnier, director of the Sèvres manufactory, on the subject of the arabesque service, urging him to progress as quickly as possible, as "M. le Comte takes a keen interest in it and as you are his first lieutenant, I believe you will do him a great deal of good by putting all the zeal and activity you are capable of into its execution". He mainly informs him "of the trip that Mr. Masson is going to make to the manufactory to bring a design or, better said, several mosaic drawings, executed on the various sides of a plate for the service for which Mr. le Comte has a project" (Arch, Sèvres, H3, L. 1). The archives of the Manufacture de Sèvres contain numerous preparatory drawings for the arabesque service, including a watercolor drawing of a plain plate with three border variations. This could be the mosaic design referred to in the letter of February 2, 1783. Our plate corresponds in every respect to this design, retaining the proposed border at the bottom right of the watercolor, with a purple background on the rim and palmettes in red on the blue background. Our plate is dated by the painter Nicolas Schradre with the letter-date BB for 1782. Barring an error in the letter-date, it thus demonstrates that the first projects were initiated as early as 1782. Nicolas Schradre was working "piecework" at home at the time. A statement of arabesque service produced by Régnier on July 26, 1783 states that Schradre had 7 dinner plates and 2 soup plates at home, including the 5 model plates (AN, O 1 , 2060 1 , n° 14). The arabesque service, completed at the end of 1783, was exhibited to the King at Versailles in January 1784. Production of the service continued until 1788, but it was never delivered to the King. It was finally given in 1795 by the Comité de Salut Public to Karl-August, Freiherr von Hardenberg, Minister of State of Frederick William II of Prussia, following the negotiation and signing of the Treaty of Basel on April 5, 1795. The size and value of the gift (4700 livres) clearly testify to the high esteem in which M. de Hardenberg was held. For a detailed study of the arabesque service, see David Peters, op. cit. n° 95-6, pp. 1107-1118.