Nadia Bellingeri
Sale Manager, Private Sales & Themed Sales
Lot 13*
A Sèvres blue-ground vase 'carafe Étrusque' with the portrait of Napoleon I, dated 1852
27 October 2021, 14:00 BST
London, New Bond Street£30,000 - £40,000
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A Sèvres blue-ground vase 'carafe Étrusque' with the portrait of Napoleon I, dated 1852
Of the second size, painted with the portrait of Napoleon I, signed and dated 'Cce Turgan 1852' for Clémence Turgan, within a gilt laurel leaf cartouche heightened with platinum surrounded by gilt foliage, the shoulder applied with elongated scrolling gilt bronze handles, the splayed neck and foot with formal gilt borders, mounted on a circular gilt bronze foot, 42cm high, imperial eagle and S52. in iron-red
Footnotes
The present lot is one of two 'carafe Étrusque' vases of the second size entered into the sale records on 29 April 1853 at a price of 80 francs each, described as 'fond bleu au grand feu, décor en or, portraits coloriés de Napoléon Ier et de Joséphine' (Arch. MNC, Sèvres, Vv5, 67, 57).
The portraits were painted by Clémence Turgan, who was active at Sèvres in 1830 and again between 1837 and 1852. She started working on the vases in February 1852 and eventually finished them in October 1852, receiving 400 francs for the two portraits (Arch. Sèvres, Vj'58, f ° 168).
While he was First President of France, Louis Napoléon Bonaparte (1808-1873), later Napoleon III, ordered several vases from the Sèvres factory decorated with portraits of members of the imperial family. In October 1853 a pair of vases Thériclien decorated with the same portraits of Napoleon and Josephine were delivered to Napoleon III to the palace at Saint-Cloud (Arch. Sèvres, Vbb11, f ° 295 v °). A second pair of 'carafe Étrusque' vases with depictions of King Louis Bonaparte and Queen Hortense were delivered to the Palace of Compiègne and have remained there to this day (see B. Ducrot, Porcelaines et terre de Sèvres, Musée national du château de Compiègne (1993), no. 163 p. 217).
The recipient of the present vase and of the one with the portrait of Joséphine does not appear in the Sèvres archives, but it can be assumed that they were also delivered to Napoleon III for one of his residences.
