A PAIR OF EARLY 19TH CENTURY FRENCH SEVRES PORCELAIN SQUARE ...

Hammer

£300

A PAIR OF EARLY 19TH CENTURY FRENCH SEVRES PORCELAIN SQUARE FORM DISHES painted with bold flowers upon a marble ledge, under a gilded apple green border. 21 cm square. Note: The vast and diverse production of the Sèvres factory in the nineteenth century resists easy characterization, and its history during this period reflects many of the changes affecting French society in the years between 1800 and 1900. Among the remarkable accomplishments of the factory was the ability to stay continuously in the forefront of European ceramic production despite the myriad changes in technology, taste, and patronage that occurred during this tumultuous century. The factory, which had been founded in the town of Vincennes in 1740 and then re established in larger quarters at Sèvres in 1756, became the preeminent porcelain manufacturer in Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century. Louis XV had been an early investor in the fledgling ceramic enterprise and became its sole owner in 1759. However, due to the upheavals of the French Revolution, its financial position at the beginning of the nineteenth century was extremely precarious. No longer a royal enterprise, the factory also had lost much of its clientele, and its funding reflected the ruinous state of the French economy