Litron Cup (gobelet litron)

Dublin Core

Title

Litron Cup (gobelet litron)

Subject

LCSH: Porcelain, French—18th century—Pictorial works | Porcelain, French—Private collections | Porcelain, French—Sèvres—18th century—Slide collections | Sèvres porcelain—18th century—Pictorial works | Slides (Photography)—Private collections | Fritzsche, Ulrich—Art collections—Pictorial works | Ceramic tableware—France—18th century | Drinking cups—France—18th century | Gilding—France—18th century | Landscapes on porcelain—France—18th century | Decoration and ornament—Plant forms—France—18th century | Birds in art | Trees in art | Female nude in art | Dodin, Charles-Nicolas—Pictorial works

Getty AAT keywords: porcelain (material) | porcelain (visual works) | dinnerware | cups (drinking vessels) | porcelain painting (image-making) | gilding-technique | landscapes (representations) | floral patterns | plant-derived motifs | trees | Aves (class) | nudes (representations)

Description

35mm color slide of a litron cup (Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory). The ground color is a dark blue known as the king's blue (bleu du roi), overlaid with tooled gilding of garlands, scrolls, foliage, and urns. The central reserve depicts two nude women, pointing to doves in the foreground, and framed by trees in the background. Fritzsche (2018) notes that the scene in the reserve was painted by Charles-Nicolas Dodin (1734–1803; active 1754–1802), and based on a work by François Lemoyne (1688–1737). Dodin was a painter whose “meticulous technique” was “unrivalled” at the porcelain factory (Savill 1988, 3:1029–30). The cup is an example of a gobelet litron (litron cup), which has a distinctive, straight-sided, cylindrical shape, and was the most common form of teacup produced at the Sèvres factory. For a side-view of this cup, see Slide 58c. For the matching saucer, see Slide 58a. The number 58 is handwritten on the slide.
See the Fritzsche Porcelain Exhibit for more details on the litron cup, Dodin, and diverse blue ground colors such as the king's blue (bleu du roi).

Creator

Fritzsche, Ulrich (creator of slide); D’Arms, Ted (photographer); Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory (creator of object)

Publisher

Seattle Art Museum Libraries

Date

1784 (date of object)
May 1978 (date of slide)

Contributor

Painter, Kirsten Blythe

Rights

These materials may be protected under copyright law and may only be used for educational, teaching, and learning purposes. If intended use is beyond these purposes, it is the sole responsibility of the user to obtain the appropriate copyright permissions.

Format

application/jpg

Language

English | French

Type

still image

Spatial Coverage

France

Temporal Coverage

eighteenth century (dates CE)

Still Image Item Type Metadata

Original Format

slide, scanned using an Epson Perfection V600 Photo scanner at 3200 dpi.

Citation

Fritzsche, Ulrich (creator of slide); D’Arms, Ted (photographer); Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory (creator of object), “Litron Cup (gobelet litron),” Seattle Art Museum Libraries: Digital Collections, accessed March 28, 2024, https://samlibraries.omeka.net/items/show/2986.