Dagoty cup & saucer c.1810

Description

Cup and saucer in hard-paste porcelain, made by the manufacture of Pierre-Louis Dagoty in Paris, circa 1810. The flared cup has an out-turned rim and an elaborate scrolling handle, its deep black ground decorated with a pale-blue female figure in classical drapery. The figure is treated in profile in the manner of an antique vase painting or cameo, while small gilt ornaments punctuate the surrounding black field.

History & Context

Pierre-Louis Dagoty was one of the most important independent Paris porcelain manufacturers of the Consulate and First Empire. Established around 1798–1800, the manufacture developed from relatively modest beginnings into one of the leading producers of luxury porcelain in Paris. Dagoty had trained in the orbit of the celebrated Dihl and Guérhard manufacture and brought to his own production a particular interest in rich ground colours, unusual forms and extensive gilding. By the middle years of the Empire his business employed around one hundred workers and supplied an international clientele.

The prestige of the manufacture was greatly enhanced by the patronage of Empress Joséphine, secured during the early years of the Empire and certainly before 1807. Dagoty was thereafter entitled to associate his manufacture with the Empress, and surviving porcelains carrying the imperial designation demonstrate the importance of this connection. Contemporary and later commentators particularly noted the elegance of Dagoty’s forms and the exceptional quality and richness of the gilding employed on his wares.

The decoration of this cup and saucer belongs to the archaeological strain of Empire design. Its black ground and isolated classical figure reflect the contemporary fascination with the art of antiquity and with what was then broadly described as the Etruscan or Pompeian taste. The pale-blue figure set against black recalls both ancient painted ceramics and the silhouettes of antique gems, while the saucer’s trophies of arms connect the object more directly with the visual language of the Napoleonic period.

Military trophies, shields, swords, helmets, laurel wreaths and figures of Victory became characteristic elements of Empire decoration. Derived principally from ancient Greek and Roman sources, such motifs linked contemporary France with the military triumphs and imperial authority of the ancient world. They appeared throughout the decorative arts, from furniture and textiles to silver and porcelain. (National Gallery of Victoria⁠)

Dagoty was particularly adept at translating this fashionable vocabulary into porcelain. Black-ground pieces decorated with antique figures, trophies, birds and other Pompeian-inspired motifs occur repeatedly within the manufacture’s surviving production. In this cup and saucer the severity of the black ground and classical imagery is deliberately contrasted with the luxury of extensive gold decoration, producing an object that is both archaeological in inspiration and characteristically Parisian in its opulence.

Bibliography

Dagoty à Paris - la manufacture de porcelain de l’Imperatrice
Somogy éditions d’art, Paris, 2006
Page 70

Additional photographs