Part I: Supply, Demand, And Design (1700-1865)
Chapter 1 - Demand and Production
Topic: Sevres Porcelain Production
An image posted is of Vivant Denon's service of Sevres porcelain given by Napoleon Bonaparte to Czar Alexander I in 1807, now in the Kuskovo Palace Museum. This type of porcelain production at the Sevres Factory in France was created as a result of the Grand Tour and more specifically, the discovery and excavations of Egypt after the arrival of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte to Egypt in 1798 (The Battle of the Nile).
The British Designer, Thomas Hope had an Egyptian Gallery, which was a private room in his home to display his Egyptian antiquities which he acquired on his own Grand Tour of Egypt.
According to information regarding an Egyptian Sevres trial plate by the British Museum, "the decoration for the service known as the Service Egyptien was designed in 1805." The dinner service contained images of Egypt which were painted in sepia tones in the center with a border of dark blue with gold hieroglyphs. The motifs were based on illustrations published in Dominique-Vivant Denon's Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte (1802. The artist accompanied Napoleon on his Egyptian campaign in 1798 as an official artist and recorder of the ruins. Denon's vases and his publication provided the inspiration for two editions of this Sèvres service: one was presented to Czar Alexander I of Russia in 1808, the other was ordered by the Empress Josephine in 1810, but was rejected by her because she felt it was too severe in its style. This second service remained at the Sevres factory, and was eventually presented to Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852). It is now in the Wellington Museum, Apsley House, London.
The featured plate that is illustrated as part of this blog is apparently unique, and may be a trial piece. There is a watercolour drawing in the Sèvres factory archive for the border dated 12 September 1804 by the architect Théodore Brongniart
Bibliography:
Egyptomania; Egypt in Western Art; 1730-1930, Jean-marcel Humbert, Michael Pantazzi and Christiane Ziegler, 1994
The Egyptian revival: its sources, monuments, and meaning, 1808-1858, Richard G. Carrott, 1978
The Egyptian Reviva: Ancient Egypt as the Inspiration for Design Motifs in the West, James Stevens Curl, 2005
Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, Thomas Hope, 1807.
Thomas Hope: Regency Designer, A Curatorial Interpretation of the Egyptian Room at Duchess Street.
When London and Paris Looked to the Nile for Inspiration, Wendy Moonan, July 11, 2008, New York Times
A. Dawson, A catalogue of French porcelai, revised paperback edition (London, The British Museum Press, 2000)
Versailles et les tables royal, exh. cat. (Palais de Versailles, 1993)
D. Ostergard (ed.), The Sèvres Porcelain Manufacto (Published for The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1997)
D. V. Denon, Voyage dans la Basse et la Hau (London, M. Peltier, 1802)
