Litron Cup and Saucer (gobelet litron et soucoupe)

Litron Cup and Saucer (gobelet litron et soucoupe)

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 | Flowers in art | Birds in art | Trees in art | Children in art | Cherubs (Art) | Female nude in art | Urns in art | Dodin, Charles-Nicolas—Pictorial works

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

35mm color slide of a litron cup and saucer (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 on the saucer depicts a female nude with Cupid; his colorful quiver of arrows is prominently displayed behind them. Behind them is a stylized landscape with a tree and a mountain. On the cup, 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), a painter whose “meticulous technique” was “unrivalled” at the porcelain factory (Savill 1988, 3:1029–30). Dodin’s painting was based on a work by François Lemoyne (1688–1737). 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 an enlarged view of the cup, see Slide 58b and Slide 58c. 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).

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

Seattle Art Museum Libraries

1784 (date of object)

20th century (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.