Images(3)

Vase

Maker Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory (French, active from 1756 to the present)

MakerGilded by Henry-François Vincent le jeune (French, 1733 - 1809)

Additional Title(s)

Vase Sirènes

ClassificationsDECORATIVE ARTS

Dateca. 1776

Mediumsoft-paste porcelain, overglaze dark blue ground color, gilding

Dimensions19 1/16 x 9 5/8 x 7 3/8 in. (48.4 x 24.4 x 18.7 cm.)

DescriptionTall, urn shaped vase on a stem with stepped, rounded foot on a square plinth with a fluted lower section, a recessed band around the shoulder, and a spiralling, fluted neck with projecting rim. Two sirens with double fish tails kneel on the shoulder and attach foliate swags to the neck. Decorated with overglaze blue gound (beau bleu) and gilding.

Signed

InscribedPainted marks: in pink enamel, the crossed Ls of the Sèvres manufactory; the number 2000, Vincent's mark; incised mark: cs; Duveen label: 26139

MarkingsPainted marks: in pink enamel, the crossed Ls of the Sèvres manufactory; the number 2000, Vincent's mark; incised mark: cs; Duveen label: 26139

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. The Arabella D. Huntington Memorial Art Collection.

Label TextThis vase form exhibits a high degree of technical mastery, especially in the figures of the two sirens. There is evidence that the construction of this particular vase presented some problems in the formation and/or firing phases. A network of cracks on the vase interior has been repaired with porcelain slurry, which indicates that the cracks began to form prior to bisque firing. Deformations on the exterior of the vase that correspond to the repaired cracks are probably another result of the repair.
The bisque is covered with clear glaze; most of this is decorated over the glaze with blue enamel ground color and applied gilding. The blue exhibits some areas of uneven coloration, which may be related to the flaws in the underlying bisque.
The gilded frieze that encircles the girth of the vase is elaborated with selective tooling and burnishing to emphasize the details of the acanthus pattern.

This particularly elegant ornamental vase is distinguished by the pair of finely molded siren figures with double fish tails kneeling on the shoulder, each holding a swag of reeds and bulrushes in each hand. Only one other vase of this distinctive model with similar decoration is known; it is now at the Wallace Collection, London. Both the Huntington and Wallace vases are decorated with overglaze blue and heavily gilded. The broad band around the middle of each vase has the same gilt pattern of an upright flaming torch at the center of both sides flanked by foliated scrolls and vine leaves. The only differences between the two are that the flutes at the base of the Huntington vase are decorated with gilt patterns of husks, while those on the Wallace example are undecorated, and the Huntington vase has a pattern of gilt flowers around the base where the Wallace vase has a leaf pattern. Such heavy and richly tooled gilding was meant to recall works in gilt bronze and was probably inspired by designs for furnishing mounts (see the essay by Martin Chapman in this volume).
The Huntington vase is marked for the gilder Henry-François Vincent, and the Wallace example is marked for the gilder Etienne-Henry Le Guay (1719 or 1720 to c. 1799). Savill identifies the vases as probably the two vases "syrenne" noted in the factory's expenditure records of 1776, where it is recorded that both Vincent and Le Guay, respectively, were paid 36 livres for work on each vase. This payment for work on a single vase was extraordinary considering that 36 livres was Vincent's wage when he began work at the manufactory in 1753; by 1776 his wage would have been between 60 and 80 livres.
A plaster model for this form is preserved in the Sèvres manufactory archives. It has a domed lid with an oval knop, suggesting that these vases may have once been fitted with similar lids that have since been lost. In addition to the vases at The Huntington and the Wallace Collection, only one other surviving example of this shape is known. It is undated, made of hard paste, and has a lid, a white ground, and reserves with a military scene on one side and a landscape on the other.
Josse-François-Joseph Le Riche (1741-1812) has been mentioned as the possible designer of this shape. If this were the case, the vase would be Le Riche's earliest, produced at a time when he was chiefly known for designing biscuit groups. Other than this possible attribution, no vase designs are associated with him before the 1780s, after he had become chef des sculpteurs. The attribution to Le Riche is based on notations on drawings, dated between 1787 and 1795, of vases of similar but not identical form and without the distinctive siren figures. Such an accomplished neoclassical model, designed in the 1770s, was perhaps more likely to have been designed by Louis-Simon Boizot (1743-1809), who became artistic director of the sculpture studio at the Sèvres manufactory in 1773. Boizot's appointment at Sèvres was intended to promote a new, neoclassical style, and he designed several new vase types between 1773 and 1780.
No vases of this description appear in the sales records of the manufactory until 1795, when a vase "sirènes" with a beau bleu ground is noted as being sold to a citoyenne Meunier for 2,000 livres. This could refer to the Huntington vase, the Wallace vase, or to another of the same model.

Status

On view

Object number27.30