Lot n° 149
Estimation :
3000 - 5000
EUR
Result without fees
Result
: 28 500EUR
Tournai, late 18th century, - Lot 149
Tournai, late 18th century,
A two-handled milk cup (gobelet à la Reine) and saucer, in soft porcelain, from the Duc d'Orléans service with Buffon's birds. The polychrome decoration features birds in reserves, butterflies and caterpillars in medallions, on a blue background decorated with small gold trefoils forming crosses. On the reverse, the painted birds are named: on the cup, the Carolina Cuckoo and the Great Kingfisher; on the saucer, the Black-capped Lorÿ and the White-tailed Hummingbird.
Cup: H. 7.7 - L. 14.5 cm - saucer: H. 3.6 cm - Diam. 13 cm
The service ordered on July 9, 1787 by the Duc d'Orléans, Louis XVI's cousin, from the Tournai factory included nearly 1,600 pieces. The decorations are paintings of birds faithfully copied from the ornithological works of Buffon (1707-1788), reflecting the taste for the exact sciences at the time, placed in the center of the piece or in a cartouche inserted into a neo-classical border.
Twenty-four gobelets à la Reine and sous- tasses are mentioned on the invoice of the Manufacture de Tournai for the Duc d'Orléans in 1787. Twelve are held in English royal collections, one in the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Arras, one in the Musée Royal de Mariemont and one in the Musée du Cinquantenaire in Belgium. A milk goblet from the service of the Duc d'Orléans went on sale in Roubaix, Me May, on December 7, 2008, and another in Paris, Piasa, on December 4, 2009.
Bibliography: - Christiane de Roubaix, Les porcelaines de Tournai du Musée de Mariemont, Belgium, 1958. - Claire Dumortier, Patrick Habets, Porcelaine de Tournai - Le Service d'Orléans, Edition Racine, 2011, p.113-115
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