Object Type
Sévres, the porcelain factory on the outskirts of Paris, produced ornamental vases for mounting in ormolu (gilt bronze) between about 1761 and 1791. This vogue arose in imitation of much-admired Chinese mounted vases. The form of the vase was often influenced, as here, by hardstone prototypes and goldsmiths' work. The 'vase Choiseul', named after the duc de Choiseul, an art collector and important political figure, represents one of the earliest Neo-classical shapes produced by the factory.
Time
The end of the Seven Years' War in 1763 enabled collectors such as Walpole to renew their acquaintance with Paris. When Walpole saw these vases, he must have admired them for their modern yet classical form. A new interest in all things classical, inspired by recent archaeological discoveries, meant that the Neo-classical form of these vases was viewed as the height of fashion by collectors such as Walpole. This was one of the first vase shapes produced by Sévres to depart from the earlier rococo style.
Place
A 1781 watercolour (museum no. D.1837-1904, by Thomas and Paul Sandby and Edward Edwards) shows this vase and its pair (museum no. 743A-1882) between a pair of maiolica snake-handled vases on commodes in the Gallery at Strawberry Hill. Shortly afterwards, Walpole moved them to a table in the Round Drawing Room. Nearly a century later the collector, John Jones, displayed them on Boulle tripod tables by the dining-room windows of his house at 95 Piccadilly.
Physical description
Oval shaped soft-paste porcelain vase with raised gadrooning, decorated all over in overglaze 'bleu nouveau'. The vase is mounted in chased gilt-bronze (ormolu) with guilloche decoration on the foot and a reeded rim and snake handles all bound with ribands.
Place of Origin
Sèvres, Paris, France (vase, made)
Paris, France (mounts, made)
Date
1763-1769 (made)
Artist/maker
Sevres (manufacturer)
Materials and Techniques
Soft-paste porcelain, decorated in overglaze blue enamel known as 'bleu nouveau', with gilt-bronze mounts
Marks and inscriptions
'ae'
Dimensions
Height: 28.8 cm, Width: 43 cm, Depth: 25.5 cm
Descriptive line
Porcelain 'Choiseul' vase, Sévres Porcelain Manufactory, Sévres and Paris, 1760s
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Baker, Malcolm and Richardson, Brenda, eds. A Grand Design : The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: V&A Publications, 1997. 431 p., ill. ISBN 1851773088.
These vases were among eighty-nine pieces of Sèvres porcelain bequeathed with a collection especially rich in eighteenth-century French decorative art by John Jones in 1882. As the handbook to the Jones Collection stated in 1883: ""Suddenly....a collection has been given....which contains the very objects so much to be desired, and, as it seemed a year ago, so hopeless of attainment."" A military tailor who made his fortune during the Crimean War, Jones (1799-1882) started collecting seriously in the 1850s, sharing a taste for luxury objects of the ancien regime with aristocratic collectors such as the fourth marquess of Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace (founders of London's Wallace Collection), John Bowes, and Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild.
With their brilliant blue porcelain bodies and gilt snake handles, these vases, along with a gray ""marbled"" version also owned by Jones, were based on a real marble vase (now in the J. Paul Getty Museum) that may have been owned by the art collector the duc de Choiseul (whose name they carry). An early pioneering example of a neoclassical form, in a colour launched by Sèvres in 1763, they must still have been considered highly fashionable in 1769 when these versions (along with another similar piece) were ordered directly from the Sèvres factory by the English writer and collector Horace Walpole for his friend John Chute (see note below - this is wrong). Prominently displayed at Walpole's ""Gothick"" style villa at Strawberry Hill (see cats.134 and 135), they were bought at the Strawberry Hill sale in 1842 (erroneously described as ""Oriental"") by John P. Beavan, and later passed to Jones. In Jones' overcrowded house at 95 Piccadilly these vases were displayed with the single marble version in his dining room in front of the windows overlooking Green Park (see fig.41).
Immediately upon its acquisition, the Jones collection was placed on display in galleries newly painted for the occasion. The objects were arranged by type, colour and shape, with the porcelain in serried ranks of heavy wooden cases (see fig.42). According to the Museum's 1883 Jones collection handbook, ""....it would have been impossible, as well as useless, to have retained....any memorial of their old arrangement,"" indicating that various styles of display must have been debated at the Museum. When the Jones collection was reinstalled in 1922, objects and furniture were intermixed to give the suggestion of eighteenth-century period settings; this approach has been refined in two subsequent reinstallations of the collection (see figs.43 and 44).
Lit. South Kensington Museumm 1883a, no.232; South Kensington Museum, 1883b; Thorpe, 1962; Charleston and Bolingbroke, 1972; Sutton, 1972; Eriksen and de Bellaigue, 1987
JUDITH CROUCH
Please note: The following excerpt from the above entry appeared in error during the editing process for the above catalogue: "they must still have been considered highly fashionable in 1769 when these versions (along with another similar piece) were ordered directly from the Sèvres factory by the English writer and collector Horace Walpole for his friend John Chute".
In fact, it is not certain how or when Walpole obtained the vases. He visited the Sèvres factory in 1765, 1766 and 1769. They may have been the vases mentioned in the Paris Journals for 1769 (p.409, "two blue vases") as being sent to England but there were other candidates in Walpole's Great North Bedchamber which may possibly have been the 1769 pair. Of the three vases which Walpole bought in Paris to send to his friend John Chute, two still remain at the Vyne, his house in Hampshire and are not at all like the V&A vases.
Judith Crouch
Snodin, Michael (ed.) Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill London and New Haven, 2009, cat.149. p.311.
Exhibition History
Precious: Objects and Changing Values (The Millennium Galleries, Sheffield 02/04/2001-24/06/2001)
Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill (Victoria and Albert Museum 06/03/2010-04/07/2010)
Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill (Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven 15/10/2009-03/01/2010)
A Grand Design - The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum (Victoria and Albert Museum 12/10/1999-16/01/2000)
Labels and date
British Galleries:
Walpole probably brought these vases (named after the duc de Choiseul) back from one of his trips to Paris between 1765 and 1769. The shape and colour were the height of fashion. Walpole displayed them at Strawberry Hill. [27/03/2003]
Production Note
Vase made at the Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory, near Paris. Mounts made in Paris.
Categories
Porcelain; Containers; Ceramics; Vases
Collection code
CER
