Plateau Duplessis thumbnail 1
Plateau Duplessis thumbnail 2
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Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Europe 1600-1815, Room 2a

Plateau Duplessis

Tray
1761 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

This delightful Sèvres tea service or déjeuner was made in 1761. It is decorated with the fashionable pink ground colour rose, and the white reserves have fanciful military trophies hung with triumphal garlands of flowers. Although the mark of the painter Charles Buteux the elder appears on the underside of only one cup and saucer, it is probable he was responsible for the decoration of the whole set as he specialised in painting trophies. This set is an early example of his trophy painting as during the first years after his arrival in 1757 he experimented with painting animals and cherubs before finding a subject that suited him. The tray was also new as this shape had only been introduced in the preceding year. It is thought the shape matches entries in the Sèvres records for plateau Duplessisafter the chief designer at the factory, Jean-Claude Duplessis. The undulating profile of the tray, and the light-hearted decoration of all the pieces with their rich colours and densely scrolling gilded borders, make this tea service a typical example of the French rococo style. It may seem strange that there is no teapot here to match the other pieces however this was not unusual at the time as silver teapots on burners were often used to boil water for tea.

In the nineteenth century when John Jones bought this set he may have thought it had previously been owned by the mistress of Louis XV, Mme de Pompadour, or by the mistress of Louis XVI, Mme du Barry as this pink ground colour was routinely described as Rose Dubarry or Rose Pompadour by English dealers. The service is too early in date to have any connection to Mme du Barry and there is no evidence to suggest that either lady favoured this colour over the other rich ground colours used at Sèvres. On the death of Mme de Pompadour in 1764, porcelain of all colours was recorded in the inventory of her properties. The service is one of the many wonderful things in the art collection bequeathed to the nation by John Jones on his death in 1882.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitlePlateau Duplessis (manufacturer's title)
Materials and techniques
Soft-paste porcelain, painted in enamels and gilt
Brief description
Porcelain tray, curvilinear rectangle, decorated with trophies painted in enamels, Sèvres porcelain factory, France, 1761
Physical description
Tray, soft-paste porcelain, curvilinear rectangle, two foliate ended handles, decorated with military trophies including armour, a flag, fasces, weapons, the plan of a fortress, a copy of the 'code militaire' and a trumpet, painted in enamels and with gilding on a pink ground.
Dimensions
  • Maximum width: 26.5cm
  • Length: 35.6cm
Marks and inscriptions
  • 'H' within interlaced 'L's (Maker's mark, in blue enamel with date letter 'H')
  • fj (incised)
  • CODE MILITAI....A (inscribed on the cover of a military law book, partially obscured, to the top left of the trophies in the centre of the tray)
    Translation
    Military code
Credit line
Bequeathed by John Jones
Object history
John Jones Bequest, Cat. no.119.
Subject depicted
Summary
This delightful Sèvres tea service or déjeuner was made in 1761. It is decorated with the fashionable pink ground colour rose, and the white reserves have fanciful military trophies hung with triumphal garlands of flowers. Although the mark of the painter Charles Buteux the elder appears on the underside of only one cup and saucer, it is probable he was responsible for the decoration of the whole set as he specialised in painting trophies. This set is an early example of his trophy painting as during the first years after his arrival in 1757 he experimented with painting animals and cherubs before finding a subject that suited him. The tray was also new as this shape had only been introduced in the preceding year. It is thought the shape matches entries in the Sèvres records for plateau Duplessisafter the chief designer at the factory, Jean-Claude Duplessis. The undulating profile of the tray, and the light-hearted decoration of all the pieces with their rich colours and densely scrolling gilded borders, make this tea service a typical example of the French rococo style. It may seem strange that there is no teapot here to match the other pieces however this was not unusual at the time as silver teapots on burners were often used to boil water for tea.

In the nineteenth century when John Jones bought this set he may have thought it had previously been owned by the mistress of Louis XV, Mme de Pompadour, or by the mistress of Louis XVI, Mme du Barry as this pink ground colour was routinely described as Rose Dubarry or Rose Pompadour by English dealers. The service is too early in date to have any connection to Mme du Barry and there is no evidence to suggest that either lady favoured this colour over the other rich ground colours used at Sèvres. On the death of Mme de Pompadour in 1764, porcelain of all colours was recorded in the inventory of her properties. The service is one of the many wonderful things in the art collection bequeathed to the nation by John Jones on his death in 1882.
Bibliographic references
  • Clare Le Corbeiller and Linda H. Roth. French Eighteenth-Century Porcelain at the Wadsworth Atheneum, : the J. Pierpont Morgan Collection, Trustees of the Wadsworth Atheneum, 2000, see catalogue 98 for a déjeuner with a tray of the same shape, dated 1768. On p. 198 a convincing explanation is given as to why the name plateau Duvaux is incorrect for this model and why plateau Duplessis is more appropriate. The drawing for this shape is illustrated on the same page. 'It was first recorded in 1760, when two were listed among pièces extraordinaires in the factory's inventory. A second size appeared in 1761, when molds and models were listed at 8 livres each.' Two sizes of this tray were produced and this example tallies with the 1st size and is cited in footnote 9, p. 199. The only earlier example cited, of 1759/60, is in the Metropolitain Museum of Art, New York, no. 37.20.9 (green with flowers, 34.7cms wide).
  • Rosalind Savill. The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, Trustees of The Wallace Collection, London, 1998. See Vol III, pp. 1007-1009 for information about Charles Buteux aîné (1719-82). He came to the factory from Chantilly in 1756 and 'soon became the factory's most prolific painter of trophies and attributes.' In footnote 4, p. 1009, Savill cites a green porte-huilier C.453-1921, marked for Buteux 1757, painted with animals as an early example of his work at Sèvres prior to his specialising in trophies. For information about the ground colour rose, see Vol III, p. 1175. It first appears in 1756 (although first recorded in 1758) and is often used with carmine enamel edging the gilding (as here) to prevent the gilding discolouring the ground yellow. It occurs most frequently in the 1760s, although was still recorded in 1789. In the 19th century the terms Rose Pompadourand Rose du Barry were often used to describe this colour, particularly by dealers who probably used it to give an added allure to pink ground items by association with the famous mistresses of French kings Louis XV and Louis XVI. Savill cites Eriksen as saying the term rose Pompadour was an English term for rose appearing as early as the mide-1760s, and often used in the nineteenth-century. In her purchases Mme de Pompadour did not particularly favour pink, but bought richly decorated porcelain of every ground colour, including pink.
  • Geoffrey de Bellaigue, French Porcelain in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, Royal Collection, 2009, Vol 1, the subject of trophies recurs as trophies of different kinds are depicted on the reverse panels of many Sèvres vases. Trophies were a popular motif in the decorative arts in 18th century France. Books of trophies were published in the form of engravings after various artists, eg 1ère and 2ième Livres de Trophés dessinés par Peyrotte Peintre du Roy , engravings by Gilles Demarteau after Alexis Peyrotte, and Attributs Militaires engraved by Pierre-François Tardieu after Jean-Charles Delafosse, published in 1777. Some of the latter are known to have been published separately prior to 1768. The artist Charles Buteux specialised in painting trophies 'attributs ' Sèvres, de Bellaigue records him having painted 141 in overtime during 1766 at a rate of 1 livres 10 sols for each one. (Vol II, p. 151)
  • Handbook of the Jones Collection in the South Kensington Museum, 1883, see p. 49 on Sèvres: ' Other favorite colours were 'bleu-turquoise, violet, yellow green (this last of different shades 'vert pomme', 'vert jaune', 'vert pré' or 'vert Anglais') and red, and especially the rose pink, commonly and improperly called Rose Dubarry. This well-known rose pink should rightly be called Pompadour, as it was invented twelve years before Dubarry appeared at court. It was the favorite colour of Madame de Pompadour, and almost all the best pieces were made before her death in 1764.'
  • R.J. Charleston and J. Bolingbroke, The Jones Collection, The Sèvres Collection in a New Light, Apollo, March 1972, illustrated no. 13, p. 40
  • William King, Catalogue of the Jones Collection, II, Ceramics, ormolu, goldsmiths' work, enamels, sculpture, tapestry, books, and prints (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1924), p. 9, no. 119, illustrated plate 9.
  • Peters, David. An examination of Vincennes and early Sèvres date letters. The French Porcelain Society, A transcript of the talk given at the French Porcelain Society Study Day on 17 June 2014. London, 2014. Following a detailed analysis of the records against existing pieces, Peters has suggested 'h' is now for 1761, not 1760-61 as formerly thought.
  • Garnier, Édouard. <i>La porcelaine tendre de Sèvres</i>, Paris, Maison Quintan, 1891. This déjeuner is illustrated plate XVIII with one cup and saucer only (768C and D-1882).
Collection
Accession number
768-1882

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Record createdJune 7, 2004
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