Rare set of six plates in hard porcelain, calibrated, with a turquoise blue ground, with ornaments in the Moorish style printed in gold, with polychrome decoration alternating within ten lobes of groups of birds and flowers.
Very good state.
Royal Manufacture of Sèvres, July Monarchy period, 1842-1847.
Sèvres marks with blue and gold stamps with the cipher of King Louis-Philippe: one plate dated 1842, one from 1843, three from 1847, 1 without mark (intaglio mark 1844).
Marks of the Château de Bizy with a red stamp (on three plates, three unmarked from 1847).
Various brands of painters including Sinsson, Eugène Richard, etc.
Marks of the gilder Jean-Louis Moyez.
D. 24.5 cm.
- Dessert service of King Louis-Philippe at the Château de Bizy.
- Probably Princess Clémentine of Orléans (1817-1907).
- French private collection.
A dessert service was ordered verbally by the King in April 1842 for the Château de Bizy, then officially on July 1, 1842, accompanied by a starter service called "turquoise background, Persian decoration" (Arch. Sèvres, Vtt5, f° 55 v° and f° 103). The calibrated plates used for the dessert are distinguished from the soup plates by the presence of birds and flowers, which are not found in the starter service, which is always less rich in Sèvres.
It seems to have been delivered late, since there is only a trace of it in the sales registers on October 9, 1846 (with in particular 200 flat plates "for dressing" and 150 soup plates at 17 frs each, but without a dessert plate). where it is specified "to apply to the order of February 12, 1846" (Arch. Sèvres, Vbb11, f° 107). It is possible that the dessert plates made in 1847 did not have time to be delivered before the Revolution which pushed Louis-Philippe to abdicate on February 24, 1848, which would explain the absence of a castle mark for three of them. But what about the dessert plates marked Bizy and dated 1842 and 1843? We find on December 17, 1844 an entry to the shop selling 150 soup plates at 17 frs each "for the Château de Bizy" (Arch. Sèvres, Vv4, f° 33, 6, still without a dessert plate), but they seem to have been delivered to the President of the Dominican Republic, General Santana in August 1853, among a set that cost 4,945 francs.
It should be noted that this decoration is identical to the service delivered on April 29, 1844 "by order of the King to Her Royal Highness Madame Princess Auguste of Saxe-Coburg", Princess Clémentine of Orléans, one year after her marriage on April 20 1843 at the Château de Saint-Cloud. Called "turquoise background, Persian decoration, groups of flowers and birds", this dessert service entered the Sèvres sales shop on February 13, 1844 (Arch. Sèvres, Vv4, f° 18) and was composed in particular of 150 plates calibrated, for a total price of 7,890 frs (Arch. Sèvres, Vbb 10, f° 33). We know of a plate from this service, dated 1842, placed on eBay in 2016, and a series reported by Mr. Didier Thiery which went on sale at Drouot around 2015 (not located).
To our knowledge, our plates are the only ones known from the dessert service of the Château de Bizy, from which we only know soup plates (notably sold by our gallery in the past).
Bizy's service, paid for by the King's personal funds, is apparently the purest of those of the royal table, but the refinement of its Persian decoration close to the Moorish style (which the service of the same name had initiated in 1836) , and its very deep turquoise background, make it as innovative a service as the others. A former possession of the Duke of Penthièvre, inherited from his mother in 1821, Louis-Philippe carried out numerous works in Bizy at the same time and stayed there regularly, in particular following the construction of a railway line in 1843. It was his last daughter Clémentine d'Orléans (1817-1907) who inherited the estate following her father's bequest in 1842 (Olivier Defrance, La Médicis des Cobourg: Clémentine d'Orléans, The roots of history, p. 148).
