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(Pot a eau) Broc ordinaire 4th size
Evans, Étienne - Enlarge image
(Pot a eau) Broc ordinaire 4th size
- Object:
Cream jug
- Place of origin:
France (made)
- Date:
1758 (dated)
- Artist/Maker:
Evans, Étienne (painter (artist))
Sevres (maker) - Materials and Techniques:
Soft-paste porcelain, painted in enamels and gilded
- Museum number:
277-1876
- Gallery location:
British Galleries, room 118a, case 6
Object Type
This jug and its companion sugar bowl are from a tea service with a matching tray. Such sets are known as 'cabarets' in Britain, where they were usually for one or two people, and as déjeuners in France. Eighteenth-century accounts of tea drinking in France indicate that the tea was made very strong in a small pot, and then diluted with hot water before being drunk. It is unlikely, however, that these pieces were ever used by Horace Walpole, their first owner, as for anything other than display.
People
The service was bought by the writer, designer and collector Horace Walpole in Paris in 1765-6. In 1784 it was in the Great North Bedchamber of his gothic villa at Strawberry Hill, near Twickenham. At Strawberry Hill Walpole combined modern French porcelain with older ceramics collected for their antiquarian interest.
Trading
Walpole purchased these pieces some years after they were made, so probably bought them from the stock of a Paris dealer, rather than as new pieces from the factory. Continental porcelain could not be legally imported to Britain until 1775 unless it was declared to be for private use. Much French and German porcelain was illegally imported for sale in this way.
