Dihl et Guerhard saucer for a mousse cup

Description

Gold overall finish with burnished vine and flower border design, with central wheel with a rose centre.

Provenance

Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais (1763-1814), deliveries recorded in 1811, 1812 and 1813;
By descent to her son, Prince Eugène de Beauharnais, Vice-Roi d'Italie prince de Venise, grand-duc de Francfort, duc de Leuchtenberg and prince d'Eichstätt (1781-1824);
By descent to his son, Maximilian Joseph Eugène Auguste Napoléon de Beauharnais, 3rd duc de Leuchtenberg, Prince Romanowsky (1817-1852);
By descent to his wife, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia and Duchess of Leuchtenberg (1819-1876);
By descent to their children, Leuchtenberg House, St. Petersburg;
Registered as under the protection of the government at the request Olga Nikolaevna, widow of Prince Georgi Maximilianovich Romanowsky, 6th Duke of Leuchtenberg, 1919;
Transferred from Leuchtenberg House to storage in the Novo-Mikhailovsky Palace and eventually to the Winter Palace and the Winter Palace and the Hermitage via the State Museum Fund;
During Joseph Stalin’s regime works of art from the Hermitage collection was sold to the west as a way of obtaining hard currency.

History & Context

Some time after her divorce from Napoleon, Empress Josephine ordered 213 pieces from the factory, the first delivery of which in May 1811 was followed by others on 4 June 1811, 14 March and 2 October 1812, and then in 1813. Most of the pieces in the service are recorded under No. 430 in the inventory after the Empress's death in the sections devoted to rich porcelain (1814). For his part, Prince Eugene ordered an identical service from the same factory, in a more limited number - 94 pieces and without a centrepiece. After his mother's death, Eugene gathered the 307 pieces of this double service at the Leuchtenberg Palace in Munich, which was shipped to him in thirty-five crates on August 30, 1816. This set was sent to Russia in 1839, at the time of the marriage of Eugene's son, Maximilian of Leuchtenberg (1817-1852) to the Grand Duchess Maria Nicolaevna, daughter of Tsar Nicholas I. It was nationalized at the time of the October Revolution and 93 pieces entered the collections of the Hermitage Museum in 1920, the rest being part of the famous sales of Russian museums organized by Stalin which supplied the Western market between the two wars.
Benefitting, in the aftermath of the divorce, from a credit of 30,000 francs to order a service from the imperial manufacture of Sèvres, Empress Joséphine gives her preference to the Parisian porcelain factory Dihl and Guerhard from which she orders a service of "rich porcelain", gilded and decorated.
Deliveries range from May 1811 to 1813, including 80 decorated plates called "painting plates", one above all, plates and shaped pieces decorated in solid gold. The richness of the decorations, as well as the exceptional quality of the golds, due to the mastery in this field of the manufacture, make this service one of the most prestigious orders of the Empire era, at the same time as one of the most expensive, its total cost amounting to the sum of 46,976 francs.
For his part, on a date that remains unknown for the time being, but prior to the death of his mother in 1814, Prince Eugène de Beauharnais also ordered a similar service from the same factory. Nevertheless, Prince Eugene's service, which was limited to 48 "table plates", does not include either coffee, mousse or ice cream cups.
At the death of Josephine, Prince Eugene inherits his mother's service and adds them together with his own Dihl service, without it being possible to distinguish them, apart from the pieces struck with the Empress's arms or those marked with Eugene's cypher. All services are decorated with the same decorative frieze of liserons.
Some sets come back in duplicate, appearing in all likelihood in each of the two services. In 1816, the prince had the service transported to Munich where he established his new residence. Then, in 1839, the service took the road to St. Petersburg on the occasion of the wedding of Prince Eugene's last child, Maximilian, third Duke of Leuchtenberg, with Grand Duchess Maria Nicolaevna, daughter of Tsar Nicholas I. It remained the property of the Dukes of Leuchtenberg until its sequestration in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and its entry into the collections of the Hermitage Museum. During subsequent years, some pieces were put on the art market and this is how the Château de Malmaison was gradually able to build up their collection. The number of parts of the service that are currently kept there is 56.

Marks & Inscriptions

Stamped
Mf de
Dihl et
Guerard
A Paris

Additional photographs