Details
The box japanned in green and painted and gilt with a crane and phoenix before a vase of flowers, the sides with flowers-sprays and pheasants, the interior lined with dark purple silk and fitted with a Sèvres porcelain part tea service, painted with scattered flowers-sprays within gilt dentil rims, comprising: an oviform teapot and cover (théière 'Calabre'), a sugar-bowl and cover (pot à sucre 'Bouret'), a milk-jug (pot à lait 'à trois pieds'), two cylindrical pots and covers (pots à pommade) and two coffee-cans and saucers (gobelets 'litron' et soucoupes), four faceted cylindrical glass tea caddies with chained silver-gilt stoppers, two glass scent bottles and stoppers of compressed form, various items in silver-gilt, including: a fluted saucer, a small flared beaker, a small funnel, a cylindrical patch box and cover, two spoons, another small mixer/spoon, a knife, a two-tone gold thimble, a pair of gilt-mounted scissors and a bodkin, with key
The teapot 418 in. (10.4 cm.) high
The case 1414 x 1258 x 678 in. (36 x 32 x 17.6 cm.)
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Lot Essay

This lavish necessaire de voyage would have been assembled by a marchand-mercier in Paris, sourcing the individual components including: Sèvres porcelain teawares, glass tea-caddies and scent bottles and the various silver-gilt mixing and sewing accessories. Both Simon-Philippe Poirier and Jean Dulac and his wife Madam Dulac, based at the rue Saint-Honoré, are known to have supplied luxury objects such as gilt-bronze furnishings, clocks and porcelain. The box is unmarked but is typical of other similar travelling sets that are attributed to the Martin Brothers, who were active in Paris from around 1711, see the example illustrated by Dr Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth and Rebecca Shaw, Presence, Vincennes and Sèvres Porcelain from a Private Collection, London, 2021, pp. 68-71. The decoration is directly inspired by Chinese and Japanese lacquer and was created by building up several layers of varnish which was decorated and gilt in a chinoiserie style. This luxurious necessaire de voyage is unusually complete and as a treasured item it would probably have been used for display within the home rather than as a travelling tea set.

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