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The highly original design for this pot-pourri à vaisseau (potpourri in the form of a ship) was created in 1757, most likely by the Sèvres manufactory’s artistic director, Jean-Claude Duplessis. The piece can be dated to about 1759, the year that Sèvres began producing potpourri ships of this size (initially, they were smaller). The painters and gilders responsible for its decoration juxtaposed grounds of apple green and dark blue, the latter enriched with gold in a caillouté (pebble-like) pattern.

Probably designed by the silversmith Jean-Claude Duplessis, vases of this type are called à oreilles (with ears) because the foliar scrolls at the neck loop back to the shoulder to form ear-like handles. One of the most successful vase forms produced by Sèvres’s celebrated porcelain manufactory, vases à oreilles were made in five sizes, ranging from about four and a half to fifteen inches.

Jean-Claude Duplessis adapted the shape of these vases from silverworks made some ten years earlier. Produced at the factory from 1761 to 1768, they were called either pots-pourris feuilles de mirte or à feuillages, a reference to the entwined myrtle leaves on the sides and neck of the vases, as well as to their eventual content (myrtle leaves were the essential ingredient in potpourri mixtures of dried flowers, herbs, and spices).

Despite its name, the vase japon is an interpretation of a Chinese bronze Yu (or Hu) vase from the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.–220 A.D.). Its design and decoration derive from a woodblock print published in a forty-volume catalogue of the vast Chinese imperial collections compiled between 1749 and 1751 at the behest of the Qianlong emperor. Around 1767, a copy of this catalogue was sent to Henri Bertin, who at the time was France’s secretary of state and commissaire du roi at the Sèvres factory.

Jean-Louis Morin (act. 1754−87), who painted the marine scenes on this water jug and basin, was the son of an army surgeon and studied surgery himself before becoming a porcelain painter. He began his career at Vincennes, where he painted cupids and infants after François Boucher but, perhaps inspired by his family’s army connections, came to specialize in battle scenes and coastal views, then very fashionable.

Dressing and grooming (often done in the presence of friends and visitors) were important in the life of an eighteenth-century aristocrat, and the manufactory at Sèvres produced many accessories, often in sets, for these activities, including small boxes, jars, and brushes in different shapes and sizes. Large jugs and basins used to wash one’s hands with scent infused water were usually displayed on the dressing table during the morning ritual or in the garde-robe as precursors of the plumbed-in hand basin.

Furniture incorporating Sèvres porcelain plaques was particularly fashionable in Paris in the second half of the eighteenth century. This table was probably designed and sold by the period’s leading marchand-mercier (dealer of luxury goods), the partners Simon-Philippe Poirier and Dominique Daguerre, who received exclusive rights from the Sèvres porcelain manufactory to commission porcelain plaques for furniture. Painted with colorful cut flowers, the table’s two circular plaques are among the finest produced at Sèvres in the early 1780s.

Tea Service (Déjeuner)
Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory
French, 1767
Soft-paste porcelain
Teapot: 5 1/2 x 7 3/16 x 4 1/8 in. (14 x 18.3 x 10.5 cm)
Sugar bowl: h. 4 3/4 in. (12.1 cm), diam. 3 7/8 in. (9.8 cm)
Cups: 2 3/8 x 3 11/16 x 2 7/8 in. (6 x 9.4 x 7.3 cm)
Saucers: h. 1 3/8 in. (3.5 cm), diam. 5 3/8 in. (13.7 cm)
Milk jug: 4 5/8 x 5 x 3 1/2 in. (11.7 x 12.7 x 8.9 cm)
Henry Clay Frick Bequest, 1918

Two Plates, Two Round and Two Square Fruit Dishes (Part of a Dessert Service)
Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory
French, 1782 and later decoration
Soft-paste porcelain
Two plates: diam. 9 3/8 in. (23.8 cm)
Two round fruit dishes: diam. 9 3/8 in. (23.8 cm)
Square dish at left: 1 5/8 × 8 3/8 × 8 1/4 in. (4.1 × 21.3 × 21 cm)
Square dish at right: 1 5/8 × 8 1/8 × 8 1/8 in. (4.1 × 20.6 × 20.6 cm)
Henry Clay Frick Bequest, 1918

The earliest pieces of French porcelain in the museum’s collection, this pair of vases was made in 1753, when the porcelain manufactory was located in the royal château of Vincennes, east of Paris. Named after Jean-Claude Duplessis, who invented their unusual shape around 1750, such vases were sometimes produced with chubby little children in relief, as seen here. Symbolic of the four seasons, these figures are almost certainly modeled after drawings by François Boucher.

Jean-Claude Duplessis is credited with designing the shape of these vases, one of the oldest produced by the porcelain manufactory in Vincennes. A successful model, it was made in at least five different sizes, always with a white ground and colorful flowers in relief; most are decorated with sprays of flowers and flowering branches. The floral garlands on this pair were painted by Denis Levé (act.

This sugar bowl is named after Pierre Calabre, one of the earliest stockholders in the porcelain manufactory. It was made in 1756, the year the manufactory moved from Vincennes to Sèvres, after a design invented in the early 1750s. The decoration is by Vincent Taillandier (act. 1753–90), who specialized in the painting of flowers on a small scale, among them, the roses, convolvuli, narcissi, cornflowers, and tulips seen here.

Slightly bigger than the sucrier Calabre with green ribbons also shown here, this sugar bowl is decorated on a white ground with a variety of early summer flowers, including roses and convolvuli, painted by an unidentified artist.