Dining IN | New York
Dining IN | New York
A PAIR OF PARIS PORCELAIN NAPLES-DECORATED ORNITHOLOGICAL-SUBJECT MONTEITHS, CIRCA 1820
Lot Closed
August 12, 04:11 PM GMT
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
A PAIR OF PARIS PORCELAIN NAPLES-DECORATED ORNITHOLOGICAL-SUBJECT MONTEITHS, CIRCA 1820
each painted on either side with a vignette of two birds, gilt foliate scroll borders, the undersides with gilt-script specimen titles '17 Le Petit Tetras/18 Pincon femelle' and '19 La Petite Marouette de la guis(?)/20 Perruche du Bresil'; the other titled '32 Gobe mouche de l'Ile bourbon/33 Petrel de l'Isle St Kilda' and '34 Pincon nale(?) / 35 Le Canard huppe'
width across handles 12¼ in.
31.2 cm
It is probable that the bird decoration is taken from the engravings by François Nicolas Martinet in the work Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux by George-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. Two Darte plates from a similar service decorated with 'African birds' in the collection of the Paço Nacional de Vila Viçosa, Fundação Case de Bragance are illustrated by Régine de Plinval de Guillebon, Paris Porcelain, 1770-1850, 1972, p. 202, 204.
A selection of bird-subject plates with gilt-borders matching the present monteiths, variously signed for Raffaele Giovine was sold at Sotheby's London, May 10, 2016, lot 38. In the years following the closure of the Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea factory as a result of the French occupation of Naples, undecorated Paris porcelain began to be imported and often decorated in Naples. Raffaele Giovine, who enjoyed patronage from the Duke of Calabria, later Francis I of Naples and the Two Sicilies, ran a lucrative porcelain decorating workshop painting such porcelain.