A Sèvres bleu céleste-ground plate, assiette 'à godrons', probably circa 1758-60, of Louis XV Service type

By descent with the Earls Cowper at Panshanger House, Hertfordshire;

thence by descent to Francis Thomas de Grey Cowper, 7th Earl Cowper (1834–1905) who died without issue, leaving the Panshanger estate to his niece;

Ethel Anne Priscilla Grenfell (née Fane), Baroness Desborough (1867 – 1952);

thence by descent to the current owner.

The present plate, of ‘à godrons’ form, with bleu céleste ground and distinctive husk border in gilding around the reserves, is of the type included in the service made for Louis XV, for use at the château de Versailles, and is possibly from a later supplement supplied to Louis XV, Louis XVI or to the comte de Stainville who acquired part of the service. The absence of a date letter to determine the year of manufacture makes a positive identification to a specific delivery of the king’s service or to subsequent supplement difficult, but it is probable that it dates to 1758/59 and belongs to a series of plates produced at Sèvres from this date, possibly as a supplement to the portion of the Louis XV service which was purchased by Comte de Stainville, Étienne-François de Choiseul. Another plate from this group was sold at Sotheby’s, Paris, 15 November 2023, lot 140 and a group of plates with this decoration, some with no date letter, are now in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch at Boughton House in Northamptonshire.

The original commission for Louis XV’s service dates to 1751 and the completed service was delivered to the king in three stages, on 24 December 1753, 31 December 1754 and 31 December 1755. The service was remarkable for its innovative new forms, its bold, newly-invented turquoise ground colour and its impressive size. It was the first large service to use the bleu céleste ground colour, which was initially referred to as ‘bleu Helot/Hellot’ and ‘bleu ancien’ in the factory Sales Registers. Jean Hellot, director of the Académie des Sciences and the first scientist at Vincennes, claims to have invented the ground colour in 1753. In his correspondence retained in the factories archives he described it as: 'le bleu du roy ou bleu turquoise du service complet de sa Majesté trouvé en 1753 par moi'. Many components of the service were designed by Jean-Claude Duplessis père, a goldsmith, sculptor and gilt-bronze worker, who was brought in to supervise the modelling workshops at Vincennes from 1748. Many of these drawings, in pastel, crayon and ink, are retained in the archives at Sèvres, some of which were listed in a factory stocktaking inventory dated 1 October 1752 under the heading ‘Pour le Roy’. This archival material demonstrates how designs for an important service were arrived at gradually and utilised the latest techniques, and were unlike anything that had been produced before, either in Europe or the Far East.

Pieces from the first delivery were displayed to the public in an exhibition in Paris held by the marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux in February 1754, and it is evident from this that the service was held in high esteem. In a contemporary account recorded by the duc de Croÿ in an entry for 4 February 1754 (Journal inédit de duc de Croÿ (1718-1784), I, pp. 230-231). The author notes the beauty of this masterpiece and the ambition of the factory to surpass the products of Saxony: ‘nous occupa à déballer son beau service bleu, blanc et or, de Vincennes, qui l’on venait de renvoyer de Paris, où on l’avait étalé aux yeux des connaisseurs. C’était un des premiers chefs-d’œuvre de cette nouvelle manufacture de porcelaines qui prétendait surpasser et faire tomber celle de Saxe’. 

A significant part of the service was sold by Louis XV to Etienne-François, comte de Stainville-Beaupré (later the duc de Choiseil-Stainville) The comte de Stainville was between appointments as ambassador to Rome and Austria and would later become Minister for Foreign Affairs. The sale is recorded by Lazare Duvaux on 5 July 1757, see L. Courajod, Livre-journal de Lazare Duvaux, Paris, 1873, Vol. II, p. 322-323, sale entry no. 2819. The sale included 72 plates at the original cost of 48 livres together with 13 fruit-dishes, and 12 corbeilles, to form a dessert-service. A substantial number of dessert-dishes and plates, probably originally from the comte’s acquisition, are now in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch at Boughton House in Northamptonshire. A number of these pieces do not bear a date letter. Additions to the service were ordered by Louis XV and his successor Louis XVI in 1766, 1767, 1771, 1773 and 1779. An inventory of Sèvres porcelain stored at the château de Petit Trianon dated 16 June 1778 records a large service with close parallels to the Louis XV service. Finally, in 1784 and 1787, the marchand François-Charles Bazin purchased bleu céleste service wares, which were most likely part of the Louis XV service. It can perhaps be inferred from the Bazin purchases that, by the 1780s, Louis XVI had disposed of the rest of the service. There are no apparent supplements in the Sales Registers after 1779. For an extensive discussion of the service see David Peters, Sèvres plates and services of the 18th century, Little Berkhamstead, 2015, Vol. II, pp. 283-291.