CIRCA 1771, BLUE INTERLACED L'S ENCLOSING DATE LETTER S, PAINTER'S MARK FOR N. BULIDON, INCISED JH

The present sugar-bowl is from the service ordered in 1770 for Jeanne (Bécu) Gomard de Vaubernier, Comtesse du Barry, Louis XV's last mistress. The Sèvres sales records for the service date to 29 August 1771, and describe the decoration as ‘petits vases et guirlandes’. Documented among the service pieces are two sucriers at a cost of 120 livres. Probably intended for use at Château de Louveciennes, which Louis XV gave to his mistress in 1769, the du Barry service was the first at Sèvres to include a monogram and Neoclassical motifs.

The service was still in the possession of Madame du Barry at the time of her execution during the French Revolution, as recorded by an inventory of her effects in 1794. For a full discussion of this service and later Paris porcelain additions, see D. Peters, Sèvres Plates and Services of the 18th Century, Little Berkhamsted, 2005, Vol. II, no. 71-7, pp. 471-474.