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Sevres dessert plate ‘Blue background table with flower garlands’ 1806

Assiette Fond beau bleu frise et fleurs 1806. From a recently identified service used by Napoleon I at the Palace of the Tuileries and taken in part to St Helena as a common use service.

Description

A hard-paste porcelain plate, blue ground rim called “beau bleu” ornate with a gilt frieze of floral patterns whose myrtle leaves, center ornate with a gilt star-form rose surrounded by a crown of polychrome flowers, gilt rims. This plate comes from a recently identified service used by Napoleon I at the Palace of the Tuileries and taken in part to St Helena as a common use service.

Provenance

Napoleon 1806-1814
Louis XVIII 1814-1823

History & Context

This plate comes from a recently identified service used by Napoleon I at the Palace of the Tuileries and taken in part to St Helena as a common use service, at the same time as the Headquarters service.
A dinner plate from this service, now preserved in the chateau of Malmaison, carry’s a note stating ‘returned from St Helena’.

The decoration of this service is described in the archives of the manufacture of Sèvresbas: fond bleu, frise d’or et guirlande de fleurs, beautiful blue background, frieze of gold and garland of flowers.
The first part was delivered in 1806 to general count Bertrand (1773-1844), Grand Marshal of the Palace in the Palace of Tuileries. A second part of this service was delivered for the use of the Emperor, again to the Tuileries in August 1808, which suggests that the first part of the service was also intended for Napoleon, the Grand Marshal officiating as intermediary in this delivery.

At the first Restoration, between April 1814 and March 1815, a number of Sèvres porcelain pieces present in the imperial residences, including the 72 plates of the service of the Headquarters preserved at the Tuileries, were sent to the manufacture of Sèvres to grind off the imperial mark of the manufacture of Sèvres and to have two large intertwined L’s engraved and painted in black. The plates from the fond bleu, frise d’or et guirlande de fleurs take the same journey.

Marks & Inscriptions

Incised
↑ = Year AN XIII (1804-05)
Two incised crossed LL’s
c h = ?
Painted
↑ in red = CHOISY Apprien-Julien DE, peintre : fleurs, 1770-1812

Bibliography

Napoléon Ier et la Manufacture de Sèvres L’art de la porcelaine au service de l’Empire, Camille Leprince,
2016.