A Sèvres soft-paste porcelain pot-pourri, 18th century, circa 1770

as a nacelle standing on a flaring foot, the handles imitating leaves, with interwoven disks enhanced with gold, the neck with openwork arches, with a polychrome décor on a deep blue background, with on one side sailors and barrels on a dock, with a sailboat in the background, one of the barrels inscribed # 11 174/A, and on the other side a landscape, in two oval cartouches framed by laurel branches knotted with gold ; marked with the interlaced LL, without lettre-date or painter’s mark; the painting probably by Jean-Louis Morin (active in Sèvres from 1754 to 1787); (the lid missing, both handles restored, one restored chip to the upper part).

This pot-pourri is part of a pair, the other one being part of the Queen’s royal collections, described by Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue in French porcelain in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen, 2009, vol. I, n°50, pp. 250-253. The author underlines the fact that the gilding and chiselling of our vase are very similar to the one of the Royal collections. The seascapes of the two vases, attributed to Jean-Louis Morin, are also represented on a pair of fluted vases of the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore and reproduced in the Catalogue of the E. M. Hodgins Collection, s.d. n°61. The scene of an animated dock of our vase is also visible on a cassolette, from a garniture of three, bearing Morin’s mark, at Upton House (Svend Eriksen, Geoffrey de Bellaigue, Sèvres Porcelain, 1986, p. 336, n° 145b).

The vase of the Royal collection was bought as a pair in May 1820 to Quintin Craufurd’s widow, for 52.000 francs, the pair described as : 2 Vazes oval medaillons de Marine et païsage. Another vase of the same shape, without an openworked neck, also with seascapes on a deep blue background is part of the Royal collections (Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue, op. cit., n°51, pp. 254-225). It is possible that the two vases, very similar, were sold as a pair by Mrs Craufurd, and that the original pair – our vase and the vase n° 50 of the Royal collection- was dissociated before 1820.

Maybe bought by King George IV of England to Mme Craufurd in May 1820
Collection of Mrs. H. Dupuy, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 3 April 1948, lot 397
Collection Frederick and Antoinettte van Slyke, Sotheby’s, New York, 26 September 1989, lot 320
Collection Madame Djahanguir Riahi

The illustrations of the catalogue are accurate. There is a restoration at the junction between the foot and the vase. There are small chips restored and regilded to the top of the foot, at the junction between the foot and the vase. As stated in the catalogue, the cover is missing.One chip to the upper part is restored and both handles have been restored. Beautiful design, nice colors and painted scenes.
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