This vase was produced by the French royal porcelain manufactory at Sèvres (outside Paris). The model is probably a vase 'Bachelier à anses et à couronnes, named after the artist Jean Jacques Bachelier (1734-1803) who became one of the artistic directors at the factory and supplied many of the models for its vases from about 1765-1790. It is decorated with a blue ground (known as 'bleu nouveau'), reserved with an enameled scene depicting Jupiter (disguised as the goddess Diana) and the nymph Callisto with a bouquet of flowers on the reverse. The figure scene was probably painted by Charles Nicolas Dodin (1734-1803) who is generally accepted as one of the best enamellers at Sèvres in the eighteenth century. This vase was recently lent to an exhibition devoted to his work held at Versailles in 2012 (see below). The subject was adapted from an engraving by René Gaillard after a painting by François Boucher of 1744. The original painting, inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses, can be found today in the Kansas City Art Museum.

Dodin was born in Versailles and started work as a figure painter aged twenty in 1754 when the factory was still based at the old royal château of Vincennes. The factory outgrew its premises there and was transferred to Sèvres in 1756. Dodin worked continuously for forty-nine years up until his death aged sixty-eight. He was responsible for the painting on some of the most famous pieces supplied to the king and court, for example: the flying cherubs a pair of of elephant heads' vases thought to have been bought by king Louis XV's mistress, Mme. de Pompadour in 1758 (today in the Wallace Collection), the pastoral scenes after Boucher on a set of green ground vases bought by the king's sister, Mme. Victoire in 1772 (see catalogue below, no. 52), and the large central scene of a table ordered by Mme du Barry, mistress of Louis XVI in 1774, now in the Louvre.(cat. no. 84)

According to tradition, this vase is said to have formed part of a gift of porcelain presented to Tippoo Sahib by Louis XVI in 1788. However, the list of porcelain gifts intended for the sultan does not include a vase of this type. Nevertheless, it exemplifies the luxury porcelain for which Sèvres was so justly famous.

Rochebrune, Marie-Laure. <u>Splendeur de la Peinture sur Porcelaine: Charles Nicholas Dodin et la Manufacture de Vincennes-Sèvres au XVIIIe siècle</u>. Edition Artlys, Paris, 2012, exhibition catalogue, appartment of Mme. de Maintenon, Versailles. cat. 44
Savill, Rosalind. The Wallace Collection: Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, 3 vols. London: Trustees of the Wallace Collection, 1988.