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Pair of Sèvres porcelain vases mounted in gilt bronze painted by J. Machereau

About the Item

This beautiful pair of covered vases made of porcelain originally comes from the Manufacture of Sèvres where the white pieces were bought in 1869, decorated then mounted in gilt bronze by J. Machereau. He is designated as “ porcelain painter and decorator” in the Didot Bottin and has worked between 1860 and 1877, in a first time associated with Caille in the 216 Faubourg Saint-Denis, the alone from 1867, in the 22 Faubourg du Temple. The purchase archives in the Manufacture of Sèvres show that he used to buy pieces in white which he decorated next. His work and his life are unfortunately not that much studies, nevertheless, we know that he participated to the International Exhibition of 1867 in Paris in the Ceramic and porcelain area, where he received a bronze medal for a tender porcelain. Then, he also participated to the one in 1878 where our pair of vases were exhibited as testifies the label inside the lid : « Machereau Paris. Exposition universelle 1878. 22 Faubourg du Temple ». During this exhibition he won a silver medal and was noticed by the Royal Society of Arts of London for « the exquisite decoration » of his vases, « nicely mounted with gilt bronzes”. The French newspaper L’Univers Illustré also spoke of his work in its publication from June, 22th 1878, for the presentation of «a very interesting shelf » made by the artiste « who knows how to mix with art the soft porcelain and the gilt bronzes ». We find on these oval vases the colbat blue, typical of the Sèvres manufactory, in particularly on the extremities, on the flaring foot, the neck and the lid. Theses parts painted in blue are adorned with with a golden decoration of scrolls with leaves. The vases are put on a gilt bronze quadrangular foot. They are adorned in each angles with a square motif imitating the acanthus leaves that we also find on the feet. A laurel crown joins the vase and its foot. As four the lid, we find on its extremity, a frieze of palms and on the top a very remarkably chiseled gilt bronze pine cone. The belly also can turn allowing us to admire easily the two faces welcoming pastoral scenes. Indeed, on the totality of the vases belly and on the two faces, pastoral scenes are painted, typical of the mid 18th century kind, framed up and down by a white pearled border. These four scenes, in the taste of Jean-Baptiste Huet (1845-1811) or Joseph Vernet (1714-1789) take place in a rural landscape with woods, sometimes inhabited by a house in the background. The vivid colors in the first plan fade on the background to pastel tons and a blurry decor. The scenes seem to unveil themselves to the indiscretion of the spectator, framed by big trees emphasized by the precision of their details and the more vivid colors. On each scene, we see a shepherdess holding in one of her hand a stick and chaperoning her flock composed of cows, goats and sheep drinking in the middle of a river. On two scenes she is also accompanied by a man on a horse, standing on the background. The two paintings on the two faces are not separated but linked with a decoration depicting a luxurious forest with vivid colors.

Creator:

Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres (Manufacturer),Charles Labarre (Painter)

Dimensions:

Height: 25.2 in (64 cm)Diameter: 9.85 in (25 cm)

Style:

Napoleon III (Of the Period)

Materials and Techniques:

Bronze,Porcelain,Gilt,Painted

Place of Origin:

France

Period:

19th Century

Date of Manufacture:

Circa 1870

Condition:

Seller Location:

SAINT-OUEN-SUR-SEINE, FR

Reference Number:

Seller: 129461stDibs: LU7662232252332

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Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres

A maker of exemplary European ceramics for hundreds of years, Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres has produced porcelain of the highest quality since 1740.

The factory enjoyed royal patronage from its earliest days, and its most prominent patrons in the late 1700s — King Louis XV of France and his mistress, Madame de Pompadour — commissioned some of the period’s most elegant and striking pieces (only the truly wealthy could afford porcelain at this time). The company was originally established in Vincennes but was moved at the request of Madame de Pompadour, in 1756, to Sèvres, near Versailles, so that its operations would be closer to her château.

Sèvres became a mighty and much-revered factory working under a special grant from King Louis XV — the company’s owner as of 1759 and whose abundance of orders for special state gifts put financial strain on the company. Madame de Pompadour is said to have commissioned Sèvres to create an entire indoor garden of porcelain botanicals, for example.

While Sèvres gained a sterling reputation for its soft-paste porcelain wares, the company was late in entering into the production of hard-paste porcelain.

Hard-paste porcelain is the most common type of Chinese porcelain, then a widely exported and profitable product that was not made in Europe until the 18th century. The resources at Sèvres were largely relegated to meeting the demands of Louis XV, and secondly, it did not acquire the secret formula for hard-paste porcelain until 1761. Until it obtained the coveted secrets behind hard-paste porcelain from a chemist named Pierre-Antoine Hannong — and, years later, gained access to the elusive raw materials to make hard-paste porcelain — Sèvres produced soft-paste porcelain for decades that was widely celebrated but is comparatively a far weaker type as opposed to the hard-paste productions of the company’s rival, Meissen, in Saxony, the first to produce true porcelain outside of Asia.

The artisans at Sèvres applied the rarest and most difficult-to-produce colors to their decorative objects and dinner services. One such color, the bright bleu de roi, became the manufacturer’s signature shade and is found on many of their objects. Sèvres also experimented with rarely glazed or unglazed works that bore no decoration at all — bisque porcelain, French for “biscuit,” refers to unadorned white porcelain sculptures made at Sèvres that resemble white marble after being kiln-fired.

Sèvres marks were applied over the glaze or rendered with cuts by a sharp tool — authentic Sèvres porcelain is most commonly marked with two interlaced Ls that are painted in blue and enclose a third letter. Painters and potters were tasked with affixing marks to record their role in the creation of a particular piece, and as a lot of these artisans’ names are recorded in archival factory materials — and there is also much to be learned at the Sèvres museum — it’s likely that you can accurately identify your Sèvres piece.

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