A Dihl et Guerhard (Paris) porcelain plate c.1814

A Dihl et Guerhard (Paris) porcelain plate c.1814, finely painted, probably by Cornelis van Spaendonck*, with a large pink rose in a faceted beaker of water resting on a marble plinth, the rim with a formal design of gilt palmettes, printed red factory mark, a little rubbing, a small repair to the rim, 24cm.

Cf. Aileen Dawson, French Porcelain, A Catalogue of the British Museum Collection, pp.363-365, nos. 268 and 269 for two similar plates. The British Museum examples are recorded as having been purchased at the 1822 Christie's sale of William Beckford's Fonthill Abbey, and having passed down the family to the donor, Mrs M A Francis, who presented them to the museum in 1926. Six plates are recorded in the 1822 auction, of which this may be one. The hand is undoubtedly the same as the artist of no. 269 in Dawson's book. Cornelis van Spaendonck was employed as artistic director of the Sèvres factory from 1795-1800, 1802-3 and 1808-9. There is no firm record of him having been employed as a decorator at Dihl et Guerhard.

* Since cataloguing this lot, a suggestion has been made that this might, in fact, be the work of the Salon painter, L. Coste, after work by the Dutch artist Jan Frans van Dael. Van Dael's floral paintings regular feature heavy pink roses of this type, often in finely executed glass vessels.