A Sèvres Porcelain Bleu Céleste-Ground Vase, 'Vase Fontanieu cylindrique', 1773

Pierre-Elisabeth de Fontanieu (1731-84), succeeded his father as intendant et contrôleur général des meubles de la couronne in 1767, a position he held until 1783, where he was responsible for furnishing the royal residences. In 1770, he published a series of vase designs, titled Collection de vases Inventés et Dessinés Par M^r de Fountanieu.... It consisted of twenty shapes of vases in forty designs. Of these, some were clearly not meant to be reproduced in porcelain due to their proportions, and indeed the dedication of the book reads, "Cette Collection à été faite, pour Servir aux Tourneurs et à Ceux qui Ornent les Vases, Comme Fondeurs et Ciseleurs, &c.", [This collection was created to serve woodturners and those who decorate vases, such as casters and engravers, etc.]. Despite this, and on the evidence of the surviving models, the factory copied three of his drawings all of which are called 'vases Fontanieux' in the records. As the records do not distinguish between the various vase Fontanieu forms, it seems likely that they were differentiated by reference to their three sizes, of which the present shape was referred to as the first size.

The factory records show that nine 'vases Fontanieux' were sold in December 1772; of these: three vases, of the 2nd and 3rd sizes, with a dark blue ground with painted scenes en grisailles, were purchased by the Dauphine, Marie Antoinette, for 936 livres, while the Mesdames, her aunts by marriage, Adelaïde, Victoire and Sophie, purchased together a pair of the 1st sizes, priced at 1,200 livres. On 1st August, 1775, Baron de Buchevale purchased a further two vases. The Mesdames, later acquired two further vases on 3rd July 1776. de Bellaigue, op. cit., p. 376, cites in an inventory dated January 1, 1774 listing five vases Fontanieux in the sales room, which may correspond to the present vase:

1 Vase fontanieux 1^ere bleu céleste, at 480 livres, 2 id [vases] id [fontanieux] 2^e id [bleu céleste] 240 livres each, 2 id [vases] id [fontanieux] 3^e id [bleu céleste] Giurl, en or, 192 livre each (Arch. Sèvres, Cité de la Céramique 1 8).

A surviving vase, now in the Victoria & Albert Museum, may have formed a garniture with the present. That vase, of a smaller shape, also dated 1773, and painted by Pierre-Nicolas Pierre (aîné), was bequeathed to the museum in 1882, acc. no. 746&A-1882. Surviving example of the present and largest vase shape include a pair of beau bleu-ground vases, circa 1773, formerly in the collection of Baron Édouard de Rothschild, sold at Christie's New York, 1 November 2023, lot 503; a pair, with a dark blue-ground in Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, inv. nos. 4.1.2889-90, illustrated in Eriksen, op. cit., pl. 288; and a single bleu céleste-ground vase, circa 1777(?), painted by E. -F. Bouillat, together with two smaller vases forming a garniture, is in the Louvre, Paris, inv. OA 10941, illustrated in Faÿ-Hallé, op. cit., p. 106. The surviving plaster model of this vase form, together with those of the two smaller vase shapes, is retained at Sèvres - Manufacture et Musée nationaux, illustrated in de Bellaigue, p. 377, alongside Fontanieu's respective design engravings. A plate showing the the vase design which inspired the present vase is in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, acc. no. 28993:6.

Related Literature

Svend Eriksen, Early Neoclassicism in France, London, 1974, p. 374, pls. 449-352, 288;

John Whitehead, 'The Use of Engravings for Sèvres Vase Design in the late Eighteenth Century', The French Porcelain Society, no. XIV, 1999, pp. 8-10;

Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue, French Porcelain in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, London, 2009, vol. I, pp. 374-379, cat. no. 86;

Antoinette Faÿ-Hallé, et al., Les Vases de Sèvres XVIIIe-XXIe siècles, Eloge de la virtuosité, Dijon 2014, p. 106, pl. XXXVIII.