In the late 18th and early 19th century the Sèvres factory produced table wares and vases which imitated Asian lacquer which would be decorated in shades of gold and platinum on a black ground. Of the approximately 40 entries in the Sèvres records for vases and other pieces of form decorated using this technique (‘fond noir Chinois’ or ‘fond noir Chinois en or’), approximately 23 are known to have survived. Identifiable in the factory records for 1792, the present pair are the only vases à bandeau recorded as decorated in this style.

Despite the absence of a mark, the comparative examination of the Sevres kiln registers makes it possible to bring our vases closer to a pair being fired on in December 1792. The vases appear in the 1792 Painter’s Registers in October under the work of Leguay: ‘2Le 15 8bre: 2 vases à Bandeau fond noir ………. Sujets Chinois’ (Arch. M.N.S. Vj’5 f° 137 r°) The same register describes under the work of Didier: ‘July 13, 1792, 2 Vases, peints par M. Le Guay……….décoration Chinoise sur le fond noir.’ (Arch. M.N.S.Vj’5 f° 105)
The vases can be identified again in the Kiln register on 10 December 1792 as ‘2 Vases fond noir Chinois Coloriés, Le Guay Didier’, (2 black ground vases coloured Chinoiserie, Le Guay Didier). (Arch. M.N.S. Vl’ 3, f° 219 r°)
The pair of vases painted by Le Guay are the only vases with this type of decoration which are described as ‘à Bandeau’. Other blackground vases are described in the records with terms such as ‘Chinois’ or ‘Chinois en or’, but in this instance the decoration is specifically ‘Chinoise sur le fond noir’, (Chinese on a black ground). The whereabouts of these vases until 1797 is not certain. It is possible that they could be the vases which were sent to the depots of the Commissaires du Muséum National and described tantalisingly as ‘No. 52. Deux Vases fond vieux Lacque de la Chine aussi de Porcelaine de seves. Pour anses des dragons ailés la base doré d’or moulu’. Although as de Bellaigue points out, this description could refer to either the present vases or those in the Royal Collection. The description of a pair of vases in a lottery sale in September 1797 almost certainly refers to the present pair. The Revolutionary Government organised parties at the Château de SaintCloud to sell confiscated luxury goods including porcelain from various factories by lottery. Entitled ‘Exposition des tapisseries des Gobelins, Porcelaines de Sèvres, et description des Tableaux existans au château de Saint Cloud. A Paris, Fructidor an Vème’, the sale catalogue lists lot 26 as follows: ‘No 26 - deux vases à bandeau, fond noir, imitant le laque’, [two vases with bands, black-ground, imitating lacquer].
The ciseleur-doreur François Rémond was considered one of the foremost doreur sur métaux of the Louis XVI period. He succeeded in attracting the most important clients and he also collaborated extensively with the marchand -mercier Dominique Daguerre who supplied the French court. After the Revolution, in collaboration with the architect Henry Holland, Daguerre oversaw furnishing the Prince of Wales’s new London residence, Carton House. The dragon mounts on these vases bear a strong resemblance to those on a pair of black-ground Sèvres pot-pourri vases (inv. RCIN 2347. 1-2) decorated with gold and platinum chinoiseries in the British Royal Collection, dating 1791-1792. The Royal Collection vases were bought by the future King George IV, possibly in 1815.
Today, only about seventeen vases with a black ground are known to have survived and have been published, including:
-A pair of vases with dragon form mounts, and a pair of vase Etrusque in the Royal Collection, (de Bellaigue, op. cit. and Guy F. Laking, Sèvres Porcelain at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, London 1907, n°286-287, p. 158, pl. 61);
-two pairs of bottle vases, a ewer and an oval lion-headed cassolette in Belton House, Grantham;
a pair of vase Chinois in the Wrightsman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum, New York (Carl C. Dauterman, The Wrightsman Collection, Vol. IV, New York, 1970, no. 91, p. 223-224 and Svend Eriksen, Geoffrey de Bellaigue, Sèvres Porcelain, London 1987, no. 157, p. 352);

-another pair of the same shape at the Château de Compiègne (Musée national du Château de Compiègne, Porcelaines et Terres de Sèvres, Paris, 1993, n° 4, p. 53);
-and a third pair at the Grand Trianon (Denise Ledoux- Lebard, Inventaire général du musée de Versailles et des Trianons, le Grand Trianon, Paris, 1975, p. 35); and a set of three flower vases sold at Christie’s London, 30 June 30 1986, lot 221.