A Sèvres hard-paste dessert plate from the 'Service fond bleu figures en brun', circa 1808

Footnotes

See Camille Leprince, Napoléon Ier & la Manufacture de Sèvres (2016), no. 114, and Aileen Dawson, French Porcelain in the British Museum (1994), pp. 215-217, no. 179, for a full discussion of the service. Another plate is in the British Museum, London, illustrated in Aileen Dawson (1994), no. 179. Other plates from the service are in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (Accession no. 1987.224) and The Art Institute of Chicago (Gift of Alfred Duane Pell, 1904.225).

The service first appears in the sale records in 1806 under the name 'service Leguay', after the artist Le Guay, who was paid 19 francs and 40 centimes for 'figures en brun rehaussés d'or' on six plates from August-September 1806. It arrived at the factory saleroom on 8 March 1808, where it was entered into the sale register as 'Service de dessert sur fond beau bleu figures en brun rehaussées en or sur fond caillouté'. The figures have been identified as having been after engravings by Alexandre-Evariste Fragonard (1780-1850), who later worked at the factory between 1812 and 1835. It is not known for whom the service was originally intended and it remained on the factory shelves until the auction between December 1826 and January 1827.

A plate from the service sold in these rooms, 27 October 2021, lot 21. Another sold at Christie's New York, 14 June 2017, lot 175, and four further plates were sold at Sotheby's London, 22 January 2020, lot 260.