Plate from the Catherine the Great Service (assiette)

Plate from the Catherine the Great Service (assiette)

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 | Plates (Tableware)—France—18th century | Gilding—France—18th century | Decoration and ornament—Plant forms—France—18th century | Flowers in art | Plants in art | Crowns in art | Tandart, Jean-Baptiste —Pictorial works | Chauvaux, Michel-Barnabé —Pictorial works

Getty AAT keywords: porcelain (material) | porcelain (visual works) | dinnerware | decorative plates | plates (general, dishes) | porcelain painting (image-making) | gilding-technique | flower (motif) | floral patterns | plant-derived motifs | crowns (headdresses)

35mm color slide of a plate from the Catherine the Great Service (Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory). It has a turquoise blue ground color (known as bleu céleste), a frieze of gilt scrolls (rinceaux), and small oval reserves depicting scenes from classical antiquity en grisaille, in imitation of bas-reliefs. This is part of a celebrated dinner- and dessert-service commissioned in 1776 by Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia. At the center of the plate is Catherine’s monogram (E II) (Savill 1988, 2:762–82; Dawson 1994, 141–44; Roth and Le Corbeiller 2000, 281–83). The plate has a mark for Jean-Baptiste Tandart aîné (the elder; 1729–1816, active 1754–1800 or 1803), who was one of the “most skilled flower-painters” of his era (Eriksen and De Bellaigue 1987, 96; dates from Savill 1988, 3:1070; Tardy 1981, 566), as well as a gilder’s mark for Michel-Barnabé Chauvaux aîné (the elder; also known as Chauveaux, active ca. 1753–88), a “gilder and painter of ornaments” (Tardy 1981, 533; Savill 1988, 3:1020–21). The number 56 is handwritten on the slide.

See the Fritzsche Porcelain Exhibit for more details on the Catherine the Great Service, the color bleu céleste (celestial blue), Tandart, Chauvaux, and porcelain marks.

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

Seattle Art Museum Libraries

1782 (date of object)

June 1982 (date of slide)

Painter, Kirsten Blythe

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application/jpg

English | French

still image

See Complete Bibliography for the Fritzsche Porcelain Collection

France

eighteenth century (dates CE)

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