A large Vincennes/Sèvres oval green-ground dish (plat à groseilles) from the Frederick V of Denmark service, dated 1757

Footnotes

Provenance:
Purchased by Lazare Duvaux between 1757 and 1758, supplied to Louis XV and delivered to the abbé comte de Bernis, ministre des affaires étrangères (Minister for Foreign Affairs) as intermediary for the gift to Frederik V, King of Denkmark and Norway;
With Dragesco-Cramoisan, Paris;
Private Collection

The service was in response to a gift of stallions, according to surviving correspondence, where it is described as Porcelaines de Vincennes, and was made up of green-ground pieces with a variety of decoration: flowers, fruit and flowers, birds and also figural scenes. For a detailed discussion about the service, see David Peters, Sèvres Plates and Services (2005, revised edition 2015), vol. II, no. 57-2, pp. 301-305.

The records list eight plats d'entrées which were made in different sizes at a cost of either 144 or 192 livres each. It is not specified which exact shapes were used for the smaller and larger plats d'entrées, but the present lot (together with another dish of the same shape) seems to have been one of the eight, likely one of the four larger ones at a cost of 192 livres. A circular dish dated D (plat de pot à oille du roi) from a Paris private collection, mentioned by Peters, may also have been one of the larger plats d'entrées. He suggests the smaller plats may have included plat à raves, including one dated D sold at Sotheby's Monte Carlo, 27 June 1984, lot 1570.

The shape known as 'plat à groseilles' is based on a design drawing by Jean-Claude Duplessis, which still survives in the archives at Sèvres and is annotated 'grand plat du Rôt pour le bout de table'. The shape was also used for dishes in the Louis XV service, see Tamara Préaud and Antoine d'Albis, La Porcelaine de Vincennes (1991), p.74, no. 15.