Sèvres Style - Pot Pourri Vase Porcelain (pot Pourri Gondole)

Gondola-shaped pot pourri in polychrome porcelain with a celestial blue background garland of flowers, cartouches with cherubs, rich in gold. bears an apocryphal mark of Meissen on the reverse. The French royal factory of Sèvres became the most influential and prestigious porcelain factory in Europe in the second half of the 18th century. Its products are characterized by innovation both in form and decoration, and by a constant high level of technicality. These qualities are evident in the intricate openwork design of this gondola vase's lid and shoulder, the rich turquoise ground color, and the detailed painted and gilt decoration. Designed to contain a potpourri, the first of these vases first belonged to Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV and fervent patron of the Sèvres factory, it is now kept in the Metropolitan Museum of New York (turquoise background ), there is also one in the collections of the Royal Family of England (pink background) as well as one in the Wallace collection in London (green background) This vase owes its name to its similarity in shape with that of a Venetian gondola. It has a close family resemblance to two other Sèvres models: the mask basin and the vessel potpourri and is one of the most ambitious vases produced at Sèvres. Each of the three vase shapes is based on the same composite plaster model, still preserved at Sèvres. The main reserves are here decorated with putti in clouds; the subsidiary reserves at both ends contain garlands of flowers.