Vase with elephant heads.
Design Porcelain

Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory, Jean-Claude Duplessis

Maurice Quentin de La Tour. Portrait of King Louis XV of France. 1748. Louvre.
Maurice Quentin de La Tour. Portrait of King Louis XV of France. 1748. Louvre.

History of Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory

Sevres porcelain manufactory is one of the most famous in the world. It was founded in 1740, but not in Sevres, but in Vincennes (10 km west of Paris) with the support of King Louis XV. This manufactory became the third largest in Europe after Meissen and Vienna. Mass commercial production at Vincennes began in 1745, when Louis XV granted the manufactory the privilege of making porcelain “in the Saxon manner, painted and gilded, with human figures”, i.e. allowed to imitate the products of the Meissen porcelain manufactory.

Sevres porcelain manufactory at the beginning of the 20th century.
Sevres porcelain manufactory at the beginning of the 20th century.

But the French did not imitate for long, the patronage of Louis XV and his mistress, the Marquise de Pompadour, made it possible to attract many outstanding masters to work, thanks to which, by the end of the 1740s, Vincennes had formed his own unique style, inspired by exquisite rococo motifs. In the early 1750s, it became clear that the manufactory needed more premises, and in 1753 in the town of Sevres, not far from the Bellevue Palace, where the Marquise de Pompadour lived, construction began on a building designed by the architect Laurent Lendet. The building was completed in 1756 and the same year production moved to Sèvres. From this moment begins the history of the Sevres porcelain manufactory, which will soon become one of the most significant in Europe. Three years later, in 1759, she received royal status.

A distinctive feature of the early products of Sevres was that they were created from “soft porcelain”. It contained less kaolin and more glassy additives. The firing temperature was also lower than that of solid masses. Thanks to this, the products turned out to be more transparent with a beautiful white or creamy tint, and the fusion of glaze with paints gave deeper colors. In addition, experts note that “soft porcelain” was more melodic than hard, but also more fragile.

Color palette for soft porcelain of the National Sevres Porcelain Manufactory. 1798.
Color palette for soft porcelain of the National Sevres Porcelain Manufactory. 1798.

Jean Ello

However, the real calling card of Sevres was the unique color palette invented by the chemist and Academician Jean Ello. The earliest of the paints he created was “royal blue” (1749), then in 1753 Ello developed the famous “sky blue” paint of extraordinary freshness and purity of tone. And a few years later (probably around 1758), another unique paint of a delicate warm pink shade was invented, which was named after the patroness “pink pompadour”. Objects in this color were very rare, since it turned out that it was difficult to obtain the necessary tone during firing, and after the death of Ello in 1766, as the researchers note, porcelain in this shade was completely stopped.

A characteristic technique of the Sèvres manufactory was painting in reserves (the so-called areas of the background left uncovered with colored glaze) with flowers, birds, sophisticated landscapes, etc. Such compositions, as a rule, had frames made of gilded rocaille, vegetation, as well as oriental motifs fashionable in the Rococo era, called “chinoiserie” (“Chinese”).

Sevres Porcelain Manufactory. Vase. 1757 1758.
Sevres Porcelain Manufactory. Vase. 1757 1758.

From the very beginning of their activity, first Vincennes, and then Sevres, produced exclusively luxury goods, intended mainly for the French court. Every year, the manufactory presented a variety of fine porcelain products that satisfied the changing tastes of noble clients. A tradition quickly developed at the end of December, the king arranged a show of Sevres novelties in his chambers in Versailles.

This soon made the Sevres manufactory the most expensive in France and one of the most prestigious in Europe. Prices ranged from a few livres for the simplest cup and saucer to several thousand for a vase and several tens of thousands for a service. It is known, for example, that in 1773, Louis XV presented the Queen of the Two Sicilies, Maria Carolina of Austria, with a Sevres service worth 12,424 livres.

Sevres Porcelain Manufactory. Items from the service with cameos. 1778 1779. State Hermitage.
Sevres Porcelain Manufactory. Items from the service with cameos. 1778 1779. State Hermitage.

One of the most significant masters of the Vincennes and Sevres manufactories was Jean-Claude Duplessis.

He was of Italian origin and his name was Giovanni Claudio Fyamberlano. He was born in Turin and initially worked in his native city as a jeweler for representatives of the House of Savoy. In 1718, when Prince Victor Amadeus I of Savoy fled from the royal guardianship and creditors from Turin to Paris, Chiamberlano also arrived in his retinue in the French capital. Around 1730, Victor of Savoy refused patronage and the count d’Argenson, who was attracted by his products, became the master’s new patron.

He helped Chiamberlano with a workshop, as well as with the status of a privileged artisan, since the Paris guild of artisans did not accept foreign craftsmen. Probably, it was at this time that the jeweler changed his name to the French manner, supplementing it with a typically French surname. Giovanni Claudio Chiamberlano became Jean-Claude Chamberlain Duplessis. From 1742, he became quite famous in Paris, and from 1747 until his death in 1774, he worked at the royal porcelain manufactories, where he created new forms of vases that glorified both him and his production.

Items from the service with cameos.
Items from the service with cameos.

In designing these vases, Duplessis was inspired by original Chinese and Japanese porcelain, as well as items from the Meissen Porcelain Manufactory. One of the most likely sources could be ceramic “birdcage” vases created in Japan in the 1680s 1700s, as well as their Meissen copies of the 1720s 1730s. Saxon elector Augustus II the Strong was an avid porcelain collector and amassed the world’s largest collection of such Japanese vases. Twelve of the twenty known birdcage vases belonged to him and are still in the Porcelain Collection in the Dresden Zwinger.

Of course, Duplessis did not copy his elephants from Japanese and Meissen ones, but he certainly could have been inspired by them. His elephant vases have become one of the most exotic and unique creations of the Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory. A huge number of such vases were created with different patterns and in all the key colors of Sèvres. Today, several of these vases are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, including a pair in the rare color “pink pompadour”.

Sevres Porcelain Manufactory. Vase with elephant heads. OK. 1757. Metropolitan Museum of Art USA.
Sevres Porcelain Manufactory. Vase with elephant heads. OK. 1757. Metropolitan Museum of Art USA.

The history of these two vases is very interesting. They were exhibited at Versailles in December 1758, along with several others in the same color. Probably the color “Pink Pompadour” was then first introduced to the courtiers, because the impression it made on the public was significant. The color was described as “very fresh and very pleasant”. And the Crown Prince of Condé, Louis V de Bourbon, even bought five pink vases, paying a total of 4,320 livres for them, which was his most expensive purchase of that year.

Among these five vases were the elephant head vases from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of which you can see in the photographs. Other famous works of Duplessis were scented vases or, as they were also called, medley vases in the shape of ships. Such vases were filled with mixtures of dried flower petals and aromatic herbs, with which the aristocracy struggled with unpleasant odors.

Vase with elephant heads.
Vase with elephant heads.
Sevres Porcelain Manufactory. Vase with elephant heads.
Sevres Porcelain Manufactory. Vase with elephant heads.

Fragrant vases themselves were not new, they appeared in the everyday life of the nobility at the beginning of the 18th century and were a vessel with a perforated lid, which was filled with water and potpourri mixture. But in the middle of the 18th century, when potpourri vases began to be produced at a porcelain manufactory, they acquired exquisite forms and were richly decorated with stucco elements, gilded patterns, etc.

In 1758, Jean-Claude Duplessis introduced another striking novelty an elegant potpourri vase in the shape of a sailing ship with a waving flag, and even in the new fashionable color “pink pompadour”. The base of the vase was a redesigned form of earlier Sèvres vases, while its intricate perforated lid with sails and flag was completely innovative and the most technically sophisticated the manufactory had hitherto produced.

Sevres Porcelain Manufactory.
Sevres Porcelain Manufactory.
Vase birdcage. Japan Hizen province. 1690 1700 years. Porcelain collection Dresden.
Vase birdcage. Japan Hizen province. 1690 1700 years. Porcelain collection Dresden.
Vase birdcage. Jean Claude Duplessis.
Vase birdcage. Jean Claude Duplessis.
Sevres Porcelain Manufactory. Pink vase with elephant heads. OK. 1758. Metropolitan Museum USA.
Sevres Porcelain Manufactory. Pink vase with elephant heads. OK. 1758. Metropolitan Museum USA.
Vase potpourri in the form of a ship. OK. 1758. Metropolitan Museum USA.
Vase potpourri in the form of a ship. OK. 1758. Metropolitan Museum USA.
Potpourri vase in the form of a ship detail.
Potpourri vase in the form of a ship detail.
Sevres Porcelain Manufactory. Vase potpourri in the form of a ship. 1758 1759. Royal Collection of Great Britain.
Sevres Porcelain Manufactory. Vase potpourri in the form of a ship. 1758 1759. Royal Collection of Great Britain.
Potpourri vase in the form of a ship detail.2
Potpourri vase in the form of a ship detail.2
Vincennes porcelain manufactory. Bouquet of porcelain flowers. 1749. Porcelain collection Dresden.
Vincennes porcelain manufactory. Bouquet of porcelain flowers. 1749. Porcelain collection Dresden.
Flower vase.
Flower vase.
Bouquet of porcelain flowers.
Bouquet of porcelain flowers.
Bouquet of porcelain flowers detail.
Bouquet of porcelain flowers detail.
Lily.
Lily.
Bouquet of porcelain flowers lilac.
Bouquet of porcelain flowers lilac.
Bouquet of multicolored porcelain flowers.
Bouquet of multicolored porcelain flowers.
Sunflower watch. OK. 1752. Royal collection of Great Britain. Jean Claude Duplessis.
Sunflower watch. OK. 1752. Royal collection of Great Britain. Jean Claude Duplessis.
Fragment of a sunflower clock vase. Jean Claude Duplessis.
Fragment of a sunflower clock vase. Jean Claude Duplessis.