A Large Sèvres Cobalt-Glazed and Parcel Gilt Porcelain Presentation Vase and Cover of Ambassadorial Interest

Circa 1890

impressed EC 85 11 to the underside of the cover, with Décoré à Sèvres and S 86 factory marks to the underside, the base engraved Le Gouvernment de la République France/ A M. Whitelaw-Reid/ Ministre des États-Unis d'Amerique/En souvenir de sa Mission à Paris/1889-1892.
Height overall 49 inches.

Property from a Private Chicago Collection

This lot is located in Chicago.

Note:

The present lot was a gift from the French government to Whitelaw Reid, an American politician and newspaper editor who served as the U.S. Ambassador to France from 1889-1892 under President Benjamin Harrison, among other distinguished posts. The presentation of the vase is documented in Reid's biography published in 1921, stating: “A gift from the French Government reached him in the shape of a piece of Sèvres, a large classic vase…. It was transmitted with the following letter from the minister of foreign affairs:

Mr. Minister, At the moment when circumstances led to your voluntary resignation of the high diplomatic functions which you exercised for some three years at Paris, the President of the Republic was specially [sic] desirous of sending to you, in the name of the French Government, a souvenir of the mission which you have so worthily filled, and the premature close of which excites in us very sincere regrets.

Coming to Paris at the beginning of the year 1889, one of your first acts was to associate the Republic of the United States of America with the celebration of our grand centenary, and since then you have never failed, while defending the interests of your country, to think constantly of the friendship of over a century which unites it to France—a friendship which finds today, in the similarity of their political institutions, a reason for continuance and growth.

In accepting the object of art which I now have the pleasure of offering you in the name of the French Republic, will you please fine in this testimonial a proof of the sentiments generally expressed on your account, and of the agreeable souvenirs of you which we cherish.

Accept, Mr. Minister, the assurance of my very high consideration and of my most sympathetic regards.

-Ribot.”[1]

[1] Royal Cortissoz, The Life of Whitelaw Reid (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1921), pp. 192-193.