Details
The huge bowl molded and slip decorated in an early iteration of pâte-sur-pâte with large white chrysanthemum blooms between similar blue bands, all on a fond céladon ground
3218 in. (81.6 cm.) diameter
Provenance
Château de La Rochepot, La Rochepot, France.
Exhibited
The Crystal Palace Exhibition, London, 1851.
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Lot Essay

The present bowl appears to be the one illustrated in the watercolor of 'The Great Exhibition: the Sèvres Court dated 1851' by James Roberts, currently in the collection of Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II (RCIN 919987). It is described in the Sèvres 1850 sales register as a 'jatte chinoise, fond céladon, ornement en pàte blache et pate colorée' with a price of 1000 francs.

The bowl is also likely the same example described in the report on the Exposition des Produits des Manufactures Nationales de Sèvres, Des Gobelins et de Beauvais as ‘une très-large coupe… les ornements en ont été rendus avec soin par M. Mascret, l’un des artistes-ouvriers les plus recommandables de la manufacture’ with decoration of ’belles gerbes de fleurs en relief’. See M. Ferdinand de Lastevre, Exposition des Produits des Manufactures Nationales de Sèvres, Des Gobelins et de Beauvais, Rapport présenté a M. Le Minstre du Commerce et de L’Argriculture par le Conseil de Perfectionnement desdites Manufactures, Paris, 1850, p. 6.

The floral design on this vase closely relates to that on an ewer and tray (buire indienne à incrustations et son plateau), examples of which are in the Musée national de Céramique, Sèvres (Inv. MNC 7673/1) and in the Wadswoth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut (museum no. 2011.14.1). It is thought that the designer, Jules Diéterle, was inspired by the Indian and Iznik displays at the Crystal Palace Exhibition, but the flower motifs on the present bowl pre-date the Exhibition at which it was displayed, and may have also inspired it's painted design.

Another massive jatte chinoise (80 cm.) was given to prince Napoléon in 1860, and entered the records of Fontainbleau 20 March 1861. See B. Chevallier, Les Sèvres de Fontainebleau, Paris, 1996, p. 145, no. 113. According to Chevallier the form was designed by Jules Constant Jean Baptiste Peyre (1811-1871). Also compare the smaller jatte chinoise dating to 1855 at the Musée Condé, Chantilly (INV No 108 2).

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