A PAIR OF CHINESE EXPORT 'CRESTED' JARS AND COVERS circa 1745

each piece colorfully painted 'à la Pompadour', the front and reverse with a foliate cartouche containing a fish and issuing sprays of peonies, chrysanthemums, lotus pods and fruit, the rim with a diamond-and-oval 'beadwork' border, and the knop painted with a chrysanthemum blossom.

M. A. Mouillerfarine, Paris

San Francisco, Fall Antiques Show, 1995
New York, International Asian Art Fair, 2002

One cover with 1/2-inch chip to interior flange and miniscule chips under the rim edge (probably original) and the footrim of one jar has a 1-in. narrow chip, probably firing-related.
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This pair of jars is from an extensive service including many unusual forms, once thought to have been made for Madame de Pompadour (née Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson [1721-64]) under the supposition that the crowned eagle (absent on the present pieces) and fish vignettes were a reference to her and Louis XV.  But it is far from likely that once in power she would have commissioned a magnificent service that immortalized her humble origins in a pun on her maiden name.  Howard and Ayers, Vol. II, p. 443, no. 449, who illustrate a plate from this service in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Rafi Y. Mottahedeh, sold in these rooms on January 30, 1985, lot 267, offer a possible explanation: "that in convivial society where ladies and gentlemen revelled on a lavish scale, the obvious implications of the eagle with crown and the fish as ribald patriotism in bad taste could be overlooked.  This may be more than speculation, for in 1745, after Madame de Pompadour had been established at Versailles as maîtresse en titre, she collected around her the literary kings [and artists] of the age....Such a policy inevitably brought retaliation and she was lampooned mercilessly by the 'Poissardes', which led to the ruin of a number of those suspected of complicity.  Could one or more of these ambitious schemes have included this service?"

If the 'Pompadour' connection is carried one step backwards, it could be speculated that this service might have been among the wedding presents given to Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson and Monsieur Le Normant d'Étoiles in 1741 by d'Étoiles' uncle, Monsieur Charles François Le Normant de Tournehem, who was not only the self-appointed protector of the Poisson family, but also a director of the Compagnie des Indes (the French East India Company).  Perhaps Jeanne-Antoinette, who for years had been called 'Reinette' by her family because even as a child, she had been passionately fond of King Louis XV, designed this service in a moment of fantasy, unaware of the unfortunate pun of the eventual reality.  Or perhaps this service, later to become a popular pattern, was ordered through her uncle-in-law, Tournehem, during her possibly naïve early years after her installation at court in 1745 - an uncle-in-law who might have approved the design (or even inspired it) as retribution for the snub of his nephew d'Étoiles in favor of the King.

This pair of jars is interesting in that, as previously mentioned, it is decorated with a modified version of the full 'Pompadour' pattern in which the fish cartouches alternate with crowned cartouches of black eagles.  A potpourri jar in the full 'Pompadour' pattern is illustrated by Beurdeley, p. 194, cat. 190; a saucer dish and bourdaloue are illustrated by Howard 1994, pp. 89 and 229, nos. 76 and 271, respectively; the same bourdaloue is illustrated by Fuchs, p. 158, no. 102; and a covered tureen is illustrated by Phillips, p. 89, pl. 20.  An identical jar was sold at Sotheby's in London on November 1, 1988, lot 605.