A Vincennes white porcelain group of 'L'Heure du Berger', circa 1748-52

Tamara Préaud and Antoine d'Albis, La Porcelaine de Vincennes, 1991, p. 169, no. 167.

Tamara Préaud and Antoinette Faÿ-Hallé, `Porcelaines de Vincennes Les Origines de Sèvres', exhibition catalogue, 1977, p. 168-9, cat. no. 487.

The model is probably inspired by the engraving Le repos de Diane by Jean Pelletier (1736-?) after the painting by François Boucher. For the engraving see Pierrette Jean-Richard, L'oeuvre grave de Francois Boucher dans la Collection Edmond de Rothschild, 1978, pp. 350-351, no. 1454.

The factory's inventory of 1st October 1752 lists seventeen 'Groupes heures du Berger', priced at 40 livres each. The first recorded sale of this model was on the 25th January 1753 to a M. De Crillon at a cost of 120 livres, (quoted by Tamara Préaud and Antoine d'Albis, op. cit., 1991, p. 169 where the authors suggest this higher price may be because the group was mounted). 

Other examples of this rare form are in the Musée National de Céramique, Sèvres (published by Tamara Préaud and Antoine d'Albis, op. cit., 1991, p. 169, no. 167); the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, ob. no. EC.3-1944, previously sold at Sotheby's London, The property of a Lady, 14th July 1944, lot 28; a gilt bronze mounted example is in the V&A museum, London, mus. no. C.356-1909, gifted by Joseph Henry Fitzhenry. See the example from the collection of the late Tim Clarke, sold in these Rooms, 27 October 2015, lot 9. A clock group with ormolu mounts attributed to Duplessis and a movement by Benoist II Gérard supplied in 1749 by Claude Le Boitteux to Jean-Baptiste de Machault d’Arnouville (1701-94), Contrôleur Général des Finances, Garde des Sceaux and Secrétaire d’Etat à la Marine, and installed in the salon of the château d’Arnouville was sold Christie's, New York, 14 October 2020, lot 24.