Style Napoleon III / Ref.12565

Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres, pair of vases Persian bottle model, 1874

This pair of porcelain vases under lavender cover, Persian bottle model was made by the Sèvres manufactory in 1874.
The "Persian bottle vase" model, created at the Sèvres manufactory in 1874 from a prototype in Persian metal, exists in several versions that differ according to the color and decoration, it is among the most characteristic of the production of the manufactory during the Third Republic. One can feel in the model of these vases the direct influence of Albert Carrier - Belleuse (1824-1887), who proposed the decoration of our vases and was in charge of directing the works of art of the manufacture between 1875 and 1887. Sculptor and pupil of David d'Angers, Albert Carrier - Belleuse exhibited at the Salon from 1851. He practiced all kinds and all dimensions with a remarkable inventiveness.
He gave models of forms to English factories and limousines of ceramics and was Director of the works of art in Sèvres from 1875 to his death, renewing entirely forms and decorations by bringing in particular the creation of a new range of vases which were a great success at the Exhibition of the Central Union of Decorative Arts of 1884.

Our two specimens forming a pair are ovoid in shape with a long tapered neck with a quarter-round middle ring framed by thin gilded metal uprights. They are elaborately decorated with Persian gold-powder motifs in the form of interlacing and arabesques on the belly and ornamented fillets on the neck. The lavender color of our vases is peculiar since it changes according to the light under which it is placed, from purple/grey in daylight to pale pink in artificial light. It is due to the use of the "chameleon" paste invented in 1848 by the Sèvres factory chemist Alphonse Louis Salvetat for the 1862 Universal Exhibition.
It is thanks to a mixture of vanadium oxide and cerium oxide that it changes color according to its exposure to light.
The vases bear the following inscriptions on the underside: "S 74" - designating the year of creation of the vase (1874) by the Manufacture de Sèvres, and "Doré à Sèvres/ R.F. 74" inscribed in a double circle - designating the year of creation of the decoration (1874). There are also incisions "A - D 74 -S" and "B.F.X", the first of which most certainly refers to Achille Debord, turner at the Sèvres manufactory between 1844 and 1882.

Nos vases sont référencés dans un ouvrage publié en 2012 par la galerie Brian Haughton, A sense of pleasure. Un modèle similaire conservé au musée des Arts et Métiers de Paris est référencé dans Second Empire et IIIe République, de l'audace à la jubilation de Brigitte Ducrot, publié en 2008 dans la collection Sèvres, une histoire céramique.

Similar commemorative vases were made for the 1874 Fine Arts Exhibition. We can cite a pair bearing the inscription "EXHIBITION DES BEAUX-ARTS/ROUSSEAU (PH)/Membre du jury, section de peinture/1874" listed by the British Antique Dealers' Association.