A Sèvres Silver-Gilt Mounted Bleu Céleste Porcelain Hot Milk Jug and Cover (Pot à Lait 'Duvaux')

Circa 1763

bearing blue interlaced Ls enclosing date letter K, painter’s mark of an anchor for Buteux and incised M; the small squat pear-shaped pot with flat slightly domed cover hinged to the loop handle with a silver-gilt mount and shell-shaped thumb rest, painted front and back either with a trophy emblematic of Autumn (ribbon-tied thyrsus, wine ewer, fruiting vine) or of Spring (pilgrim’s straw hat with scallop shells on the brim, walking stick, Cupid’s arrow and flaming torch, flower garland) reserved on the bleu céleste ground within a concentric gilt ciselé band and a further trailing vine, the cover with a less elaborate trophy, the handle and applied spout left in the white within gilt banding, with gilt dentil rims.

Height 4 1/4 inches.

This lot is located in Chicago.

Provenance:

Elizabeth Parke Firestone, Detroit, Michigan;

Christie’s, New York, The Elizabeth Parke Firestone Collection, Part I, 21 March 1991, Sale 7254, Lot 246 (as part of a déjeuner losange à baguette)

Dragesco-Cramoisan, Paris, no. D.1062, 18 September 1996 (as a marabou; with copy of invoice)

Exhibited:

Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, French Taste in the Eighteenth Century, 2 April-2 June 1956, loan nos. 469a-d as a part déjeuner losange à baguette comprising a lozenge-shaped tray, the present hot milk jug and cover, a sugar bowl and cover, a cup and saucer

Note:

The shape of the present squat pear-shaped hot-milk jug and cover takes its name from a plateau ‘Duvaux’, a serpentine pentagonal two-handled tray for a tea or coffee service. One such déjeuner is in the Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, painted with reserves on a bleu nouveau ground after David Teniers. See Tamara Préaud and Marcelle Brunet, Sèvres des origines nos jours, Fribourg, 1978, plate XXXI, no. 121 and Svend Erikson, The James A. De Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor: Sèvres, Fribourg, 1968, no. 58.

When its loop handle is replaced with a vari-baluster handle repositioned to the side, the shape of the present model is known as a ‘marabou’. Described as a coffee pot when the handle is at the side, an example painted with loose bouquets within blue-line-and-gilt-dash rims was included in Elizabeth Parke Firestone’s collection sale, lot 216. Whether sold on their own or as part of a small service, neither pots à lait ‘Duvaux’ nor marabou are commonly found. A gold-mounted example painted with a muddy landscape reserved on a rose marbré ground from the New England Collection was sold Christie’s, New York, 5 May 1999, sale 9182, lot 63. A frises riches Déjeuner Losange of 1763 that included a marabou as a coffee pot along with a sugar bowl and cover and a cup and saucer, was sold Christie’s, New York, Treasures of France, sale 2762, 23 October 2012, lot 157.

Charles Buteux l’aïné, later père (active 1756-1782), is recorded at Sèvres as a painter specializing in figures, trophies and flowers, but it is trophy painting for which he is best known and on which his reputation as a skilled decorator rests.

A Sèvres Silver-Gilt Mounted Bleu Céleste Porcelain Hot Milk Jug and Cover (Pot à Lait 'Duvaux')

A Sèvres Silver-Gilt Mounted Bleu Céleste Porcelain Hot Milk Jug and Cover (Pot à Lait 'Duvaux')

A Sèvres Silver-Gilt Mounted Bleu Céleste **Porcelain Hot Milk Jug and Cover (Pot à Lait 'Duvaux')**

A Sèvres Silver-Gilt Mounted Bleu Céleste **Porcelain Hot Milk Jug and Cover (Pot à Lait 'Duvaux')**