French 18Th Century Porcelain Figures, Groups, Plaques and Medallions
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FROM PLEASURE TO PROPAGANDA: FRENCH 18TH CENTURY PORCELAIN FIGURES, GROUPS, PLAQUES AND MEDALLIONS by Ailecn Dawson Curator, Department of Medieval and Liter Antiquities, The British Museum, I-nqland This ARTICLE will explore the development of porcelain figure making, and look at the production of medallions and plaques during the course of the 18th century in France. Its range and raison d’etre and its political, economic and social context will be analysed in an attempt to give an overview, rather than concentrating on the productions of one particu lar factory. Our detailed knowledge of the French porcelain factories has so far tended to be limited to the royal factory, the extensive archives of which have been so carefully preserved, and are easily accessible. French economic historians study ing the 18th century have virtually ignored the development of the many other ceramic factories established during the century. At this point we have little knowledge of the capi talisation of the industry.1 In Britain, despite widespread interest in ceramic studies, Josiah Wedgwood remains the only 18th century potter whose business has been analysed by historians,2 even though there are surviving records of other factories, such as Ducsbury’s concern at Derby.3 French historical documents, and in particular those relating to legal matters such as contracts and wills, have been systematically preserved. A series of wars in the last century and in our own has caused some unfortunate losses, and in spite of French centralisation they arc not all available in Paris, even when the factories may be in the region. Index ing and microfilming is still incomplete, the lack of the first making it all too often imperative to know which lawyer acted for the factory owner concerned, as the documents in the Archives Nationales for instance, are stored and referred to in this fashion. The study of the documents is vital for Figure I. Candlestick (metal fitments perhaps of later date), Saint-Cloud increasing our knowledge of the size, exact location, range of factory, unmarked, c. 1731-41, height: 23.5 cm. Ashmolean Museum. Oxford. production, outlets and prices charged for each of the facto ries, so that we can build up little by little a precise picture of the French porcelain industry in the 18th century. Thomire was one of the most prestigious makers whose In the 18th century figures and groups were not isolated pieces were adorned with biscuit porcelain.4 Biscuit plaques from tablewares as they are today. They were used for orna were also used on vases made from the 1780s onwards, mentation, most often on tables, or else, when mounted, as which were sometimes of monumental size.5 part of a garniture on a mantelpiece or piece of furniture. As At the end of the 17th century porcelain was almost part of a dessert sendee they replaced the sugar figures which unknown in Europe, except to monarchs or the wealthiest decorated the table before the invention of porcelain. aristocrats who owned Japanese or Chinese porcelains. In Unglazed circular medallions were used on the tops of France, as elsewhere, factories were established under the boxes, often of wood or tortoise-shell. Examples with Sevres patronage of members of the royal family, and relied on the biscuit plaques ornamented with Revolutionary subjects exist King for support, if only for the grant of a privilege authoris in the Musee Carnavalet, Paris. Gold boxes with biscuit ing the manufacture of porcelain in a particular area. The porcelain tops may have been made but none seems to have monarch had established an elaborate system for controlling survived. Painted plaques were apparently preferred. Biscuit ever)' aspect of life in his vast country. The structure of plaques were used in furniture and gilt bronzes towards the French society differed greatly from that in Britain, where a end of the century and into the 19th century. The brou'icr mercantile class independent of state control had existed 13 since the 16th century. The first factor)' to manufacture porcelain in France, at Saint-Cloud in the Paris region, was closely connected to the Orleans clan, which was extremely powerful. Henri Trou, the second husband of Barbc Coudray, whose first husband Pierre Chicanneau had carried out experiments to make porcelain at his faience factor)', was responsible for the organisation of the first porcelain factor)' in France in the 1690s/' A master faience maker (faience and porcelain were often, although not invariably, made on the same site) he was also huissicr de (or bailiff of) I’antichambrc du due d’Orleans and an officicr dc SAR Monsieur. ‘Monsieur’ was the brother of Louis XIV, Philippe, due d’Orleans (1640-1701). The factor)' was under his patronage, either direct or indirect, since it was located in the park of the chateau at Saint- Cloud, property of the Duke. This is no place for a discussion of the power of the Orleans clan and their indi vidual characteristics. Suffice it to say that one fairly recently published book on the subject is entitled the Apanage of the Figure 2. Pair of dwarfs, glazed soft-paste porcelain, unmarked, Mcnnccy Orleans.7 An apanage is defined as a province granted to the factor^-, c. 1755, height of left-hand figure: 14 cm. Ashmolean Museum, younger children of a king, and in some respects is almost Oxford. the equivalent of a kingdom. Although the monarch himself gave his name in the early 1680s to the territory in the New sortes de figures Grotesques & Troncs d’Arbrcs, pour faire World ‘in the south west of New France’ (Louisiana), the dcs Girandoles’.9 An unusual example surmounted by a city on the banks of the Mississippi established in 1718 was rather sinister-looking bird is in the Ashmolean Museum, named New Orleans for the Regent, Philippe d’Orleans, Oxford (fig. I). nephew of Louis XIV.8 In the course of the century the Some of these ‘grotesques’ were doubtless what some now members of the Orleans family, including its most notorious call ‘pagods’, that is figures inspired by oriental porcelain member, the due de Chartres, known during the Revolu deities. Japanese porcelain figures were reaching western tionary period as Philippe Egalitc, and who voted in 1793 Europe in some quantity in the late 17th century,10 and were for the execution of his King and blood relation, had a great ever more in demand in the succeeding decades. They were deal to do with various porcelain enterprises in Paris and often mounted in gilt bronze. They were first copied in elsewhere. porcelain at the Meissen factory for Augustus the Strong and The factor)' at Saint-Cloud enjoyed the custom of the his Court in the second decade of the 18th century, and the most powerful and wealthy members of France around the French soft-paste versions probably followed soon after in turn of the century. This is evident from the well-known the 1720s. According to Colbert’s economic theory, which account published in the Mcreure in October 1770 of a visit long survived his death in 1683, France should make things of the duchessc de Bourgogne. Marie-Adelaide de Savoie herself rather than lose specie (gold and silver) by importing (1685-1712) was a princess in her own right, and the child them, and lie was particularly keen on the establishment of bride of Louis, due de Bourgogne, the son of the Grand luxury industries. Like many of the Meissen examples, the Dauphin, and therefore in direct line of succession. The versions made at Saint-Cloud were interpretations rather duchcssc dc Bourgogne was not only a great favourite with than direct copies of the oriental prototypes. Louis XIV, but she was also his grand-niece. The account of An extraordinary dwarf on a pedestal in the Bowes her visit to the factor)' on the banks of the Seine is clearly a Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham, a fine example sort of ‘puff and describes the porcelains as decorated with of French baroque, may well have been called a grotesque at designs which were more regular and better executed than the time it was first sold. Measuring 25.4 cm in height, it those of the porcelaines de Indes, now called ‘Chinese Export’. belongs stylistically to the late 1720s and early 1730s. As we These, then, were the products with which the factor)' was shall sec, dwarfs were also made at Mcnnccy-Villcroy. They originally competing as far as tableware was concerned. The arc known at such factories as Capodimontc and Vienna same account mentions that Their Highnesses Monsieur and several decades later, and at Derby too. The taste for dwarfs Madame (Philippe d’Orleans, the King’s brother and his in art, which we find difficult to understand, may perhaps wife, the Princess Palatine) often honoured the factory with have functioned as a way of coming to terms with physical visits, as did princes, seigneurs, ambassadors and ‘toutes sortes deformity, then much more visible in everyday life, through de curieux’. humour. Dwarfs were first made in porcelain at the Court of It is still not clear when the use of coloured, as opposed to Saxony, where they were also popular as fabulous jewels underglaze-blue decoration began at Saint-Cloud, and when fashioned of gold and misshapen pearls. A masked female figures were first made. However, by 1731, both were in dwarf and a dwarf in court costume of Meissen porcelain, production and were on sale at an outlet in Paris in the rue both in the Bayerischcs Nationalmuseum," probably date to de la Madeleine, faubourg St. Honore. An advertisement first before Bottger’s death in mid 1719.