A rare pair of Sèvres chinoiserie plates c.1795

A rare pair of Sèvres chinoiserie plates c.1795, the wells finely painted with continuous garlands of polychrome flowers, the rims richly decorated in gilt and platinum on a blue-black ground, each with three chinoiserie scenes of Oriental figures reading, farming and at other pursuits, each marked 'Sèvres' to the reverse, 24.4cm. (2)

This pair of plates form part of a service which, in turn, belongs to a very rare group of Sèvres hard-paste porcelains.

In the last decade of the 18th century, while France was in revolutionary turmoil, the Sèvres factory responded to the fashion and desire for Oriental lacquer by producing a number of pieces with chinoiserie decoration in gold and platinum on a rich black ground. The techniques for producing such wares are known to have been mastered around the start of that decade, and the first recorded service produced with this decoration was sold to a M. de Sémonville in 1791. This was presumably Charles Louis Huguet, the Marquis de Sémonville, who was that year appointed Minister and Envoy Extraordinary of France in Genoa. But it was in 1794 and 1795 that a number of services and other items, totalling many hundreds of thousands of livres, were sold to the Citoyen Empaytaz et Compagnie - an extremely wealthy dealer with offices in Paris and Berlin. While archives are sketchy, there is enough evidence to conclude that among the pieces sold in these consignments were a number of services with chinoiserie decoration in gilt and platinum, and that these plates would almost certainly have been included in their number.

While there are a number of variations on the decoration of the wells of plates from these services, the border decoration remains remarkably similar. Sadly, there is nothing in the archives to pinpoint a specific designer at Sèvres, but inspiration is believed to have been taken from original Chinese lacquerwork, Chinese woodcut prints, and designs by Jean-Baptiste Pillement.

A number of plates from the services delivered to Empaytaz are now in National collections and only a limited number of pieces remain in private hands. The Metropolitan Museum holds nine plates, slightly different to these, which are discussed at length in an article for the museum's 2002 journal (No. 37) by Antoine D'Albis, entitled "Hard-paste Porcelain Plates from Sèvres with Chinoiserie Decoration in Colored Golds and Platinums". The British Museum holds a plate very similar to these, as does the Hermitage Museum. A pair of vases in the Royal Collection bear remarkably similar decoration.

These two plates were among 36 held in the collection of Lord and Lady Fairhaven, the other 24 of which have been previously sold at these rooms.

For more information concerning this service and type of chinoiserie decoration please see: Aileen Dawson, French Porcelain: A catalogue of the British Museum Collection, pp. 213-214, no. 177, and David Peters, Sèvres Plates and Services of the 18th Century, Vol. V, pp. 1053-55.