£44.9 million Rubens leads strong results for Classic Week at Christie's

The Iveagh picture is testament to Ruisdael’s chief contribution to the tradition of the panoramic landscape, which was to convert the horizontal format developed by the likes of Cornelis Vroom, Jan van Goyen and Philips Koninck, to an upright format. Rather than constrict the effect of sweeping landscape, Ruisdael managed to achieve the opposite with his dazzling technical bravura and profound understanding of lighting and spatial effects. Two thirds of the composition are here devoted to the sky and a sublime rendition of the interplay of light and clouds. The resulting passages of alternating light and shadow in the landscape create an effortless sense of movement and recession that lend the painting, as Peter Sutton has remarked of the Samuel picture ‘a grandeur that belies its diminutive scale’ (P. Sutton, The Harold Samuel Collection, London, 1992, p. 173, under cat. no. 59). 

Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh (1847-1927) was the great-grandson of Arthur Guinness, the founder in 1759 of the celebrated brewery in Dublin. Hugely successful in business, he began to collect pictures on a grand scale in 1887, and was for several years Agnew’s most significant client. A major Cuyp was one of his first two purchases from the firm, and although English portraits were to dominate his London mansion in Grosvenor Place, Guinness evidently had a deep appreciation of pictures of the Dutch 17th century. This can still be experienced at Kenwood, the remarkable house enlarged by Robert Adam which he bequeathed to the nation with a substantial portion of his collection. This included the celebrated self-portrait by Rembrandt and Vermeer’s Lady playing a Guitar, both masterpieces of the highest order, and major works by Hals, Cuyp, Isaak van Ostade and Claude de Jongh. Guinness paid £826 17s. 6d. for this picture, the more expensive of the two Ruisdaels he bought, on June 22nd 1891, giving his dealer a small profit on the amount it fetched at Christie’s just two days earlier. Agnew’s account book reveals that they often acted on their client’s behalf at Christie’s and at least eleven pictures now at Kenwood were bought in the same manner. The Ruisdael price can be compared with the 1,000 guineas (£1,050) that the Vermeer cost two years earlier.

Preceding the Old Master and British Painting Evening Sale, The Exceptional Sale totalled £5,681,250/ $7,362,900/ €6,635700 achieving sell through rates of 89% by value and 80% by lot. 

A world record was set for English Pottery with the sale of a Wedgwood black ‘First Day’s Vase of £482,500 / $625,320 / €563,560, more than double its high estimate. 

Robert Copley, Deputy Chairman of Group, International Head of Furniture, Deputy Chairman, Christie’s UK “The Exceptional Sale saw international participation from registered bidders in 15 countries across 3 continents. The highlight of the sale was a Wedgwood black ‘First Day’s Vase’, one of only four day vases to have been thrown by Wedgwood himself, and one which has passed through generations of the Wedgwood family before being auctioned at Christie’s where it achieved a world record price for English pottery of £482,500 / $625,320 / €563,560, more than double its high estimate with spirited bidding in the room. Launched in 2008, the first concept sale of masterpieces, it presents the best of European decorative arts, many with celebrated provenance; all united by the common attribute of excellence, which this year realised sell through rates of 80% by lot and 89% by value with A world record was also set for a work by the Komai studio, a pair of Japanese inlaid iron vases and covers, which sold over estimate for £302,500 / $392,040 / €353,320. The top lots of the evening were a Meissen white model of a great bustard, which originated from Augustus the Strong’s porcelain menagerie and a pair of ice pails, ordered by Catherine the Great of Russia, the most elaborate and expensive set ever produced by Sèvres, both of which made £842,500 / $1,087,668 / €984,040".

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Lot 320. A Wedgwood black ‘First Day’s Vase, 1769. Estimate £120,000 - £180,000 ($155,520 - $233,280). Price Realized £482,500 ($625,320) (€563,560). WORLD RECORD FOR ENGLISH POTTERY. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2016.

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Lot 320. A Wedgwood black ‘First Day’s Vase, 1769, details. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2016.

Oviform with curved upright loop handles, decorated in orange-red encaustic enamel with three classical figures above a titled frieze inscribed Artes Etruriae and renascuntur., the other side inscribed in encaustic enamel JUNE XIII .MDCC.LXIX./One of the first Days Productions/at/Etruria in Staffordshire,/by/Wedgwood and Bentley., above a band of palmettes, the neck moulded with bosses and decorated with a band of grass, the cover with a band of anthemion around a knop finial (finial cracked and restuck, minute chipping to rims); 10 in. (25.4 cm.) high

Provenance: Josiah Wedgwood I (1730-1795), 
Josiah Wedgwood II (1769-1843), 
Francis Wedgwood (1800-1888), 
Godfrey Wedgwood (1833-1905), 
Cecil Wedgwod (1863-1916), 
Doris Audrey Wedgwood (1894-1968) who married Thomas Geoffrey Rowland Makeig-Jones (m.1928)
Anne Makeig-Jones (b.1934)

Applied with four 19th century labels inscribed in ink: ‘G. Wedgwood, No.1’; ‘Part of Plate 129, Vol. 1 of Hamilton’s Antiquities/Hercules & his companions/in the garden of the Hesperides’; and two labels which bear numerals ‘76’ and‘268/17’.

Literature: Robin Reilly, Wedgwood, London, 1989, Vol. I, p. 71, pl. 50 & p. 414, fig. 574.

Exhibited: On loan to the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire 1979 – 2016.

Notes: The opening of the new Etruria factory was celebrated on 13 June 1769 when Josiah Wedgwood threw six ‘First Day’s Vases’ with the help of his partner Thomas Bentley who turned the potters’ wheel. Shortly after, the six vases were delivered to Bentley’s decorating workshop in Chelsea, where Wedgwood warned ‘The six Etruscan Vases, three handled sent to you a fortnight since were those we threw & turn’d the first at Etruria and sho’d be finish’d as high as you please but not sold, they being the first fruits of Etruria’.1 Fanning the flames of a growing obsession with the classical world, Wedgwood was quick to take advantage of the commercial possibilities of producing wares in the fashionable ‘Antique’ style. The shape of the First Day’s Vase was copied directly from an ancient vase in the collection of Sir William Hamilton and the classical red-figure decoration was taken from a plate in the first Volume of Hamilton’s catalogue, depicting Hercules in the Garden of Hesperides. Only four of the vases survived the firing process and of these two are in the Wedgwood Museum in Stoke-on-Trent and a fourth is in a private collection. Excitingly, the present First Day’s Vase has passed through generations of the Wedgwood family and is now offered for sale from the collection of the granddaughter of Cecil Wedgwood. Each of the four surviving documentary vases proudly proclaim: Artes Etrurae Renascuntur, the Arts of Etruria are Reborn and they celebrate the beginning of one of the most important entrepreneurial and creative partnerships in the history of British art and manufacturing.  

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Josiah Wedgwood (oil on canvas), Joshua Reynolds (1723-92) / Down House, Downe, Kent, UK. © Historic England/Bridgeman Images.

Josiah Wedgwood (1730-95) is arguably the most revered of British potters. Coming from a large family of well-established potters in Staffordshire, he was the youngest child of Thomas and Mary Wedgwood of the Churchyard pottery in Burslem. Although his upbringing was modest, he was well-connected to important figures in the pottery industry. This included his cousins Thomas and John Wedgwood of the Big House who were successful manufacturers of saltglaze stoneware. Following the death of his father, Josiah Wedgwood was apprenticed to his older brother Thomas where he was contracted ‘to learn…the said Art of Throwing and Handleing’.2 Throwing was acknowledged as one of the most esteemed of a potter’s skills and only those who were to become master potters were allowed apprenticeships to develop these coveted skills. Josiah Wedgwood proved an ambitious and successful young man, moving to take advantage of several new partnerships, the first at Cliff Bank near Stoke and the second with Thomas Whieldon at Fenton Vivian. It was with Whieldon, who was one of the leading potters in the region that Wedgwood began his celebrated ‘Experiment Book’ in which he recorded his scientific developments with glazes, clay slip and firing temperatures. These early experiments were key to his later commercial successes and the development of new types of pottery bodies and innovative decoration.  

Josiah Wedgwood established his own manufactory, the Ivy House Works with his cousin Thomas in around 1759. Building on early successes, he moved shortly after this to the Brick House Works. During this time he continually carried out experiments to finesse his creamware body and lead glaze. It was with his creamware body that Wedgwood achieved wide acclaim and commercial success. Josiah was a great publicist of his own wares and during the 1760s he had a growing list of aristocratic patrons, all of whom sought his fashionable creamware. Wedgwood had also keenly courted the patronage of Queen Charlotte who had already commissioned a service from the Chelsea factory in 1762. He gave gifts of creamware (and possibly a ‘caudle service’) to the Queen which culminated in an important royal commission in the form of an elaborate creamware tea-service decorated with raised green flowers on a gilt ground. Following delivery of this service in 1766 Wedgwood became ‘Potter to Her Majesty’ and was permitted to call his creamware ‘Queen’s Ware’. Wedgwood was quick to market his new ‘royal’ creamware and his fame rapidly spread enabling him to develop a flourishing export trade.  

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Etruria, Josiah Wedgwood’s factory in Stafordshire, showing the Etruria Canal which was built to take away the wares produced. Engraving, London, circa 1860. Universal History Archive/UIG/Bridgeman Images

The Wedgwood and Bentley Partnership (1768 -1780) 
It was on a visit to Liverpool in 1762 (where he was probably going to see the printers Sadler and Green3) that Wedgwood had a chance meeting with Thomas Bentley. Following an attack of smallpox as an apprentice, Wedgwood had reoccurring problems with his right leg. During his trip to Liverpool, Wedgwood further damaged his right knee and was treated by the surgeon Matthew Turner who was a scholarly man of varied interests. Turner bought his friend Thomas Bentley (1730-80), a shipping agent for a Manchester merchant to meet Wedgwood. A deep and long-lasting friendship was to develop between the two men which is well-documented as many of the letters that Wedgwood wrote to Bentley survive. Writing his first letter to Bentley on 13 May 1762, Wedgwood’s warm regard for his new friend is evident ‘My much esteemed friend…there is not a day passes but I reflect with a pleasing gratitude upon the many kind offices I receiv’d in my confinement at your hospitable town. My good doctor and you in particular have my warmest gratitude for the share you both had in promoteing my recovery’.4 

Thomas Bentley was a well-travelled and cultivated man who had taken the Grand Tour in 1753. He was a man of refined tastes who had considerable knowledge of classical and renaissance art. As a business partner Bentley offered Wedgwood not only essential commercial experience but also a deep understanding of changing tastes and market trends. In combination with Wedgwood’s inventiveness and deep technical understanding of the art of pottery, Bentley was able to help shape and guide the direction of production. Wedgwood wrote to Bentley ‘In the distribution of our employment between us the manufacturing has fallen to my lot and the sales to yours’. In reality the partnership was much more than a business arrangement and Wedgwood sought Bentley’s opinion on every subject, writing ‘I fancy I can do anything with your help, and have been so much used to it, that when you are not with me upon these occasions I seem to have lost my right arm.’5 

Together Wedgwood and Bentley played an important part in the development and expansion of the Trent and Mersey Canal.6 Such public activities brought both partners into contact with an array of important future patrons. The success of the canal scheme allowed Wedgwood to expand his manufactory and he purchased a 350 acre estate through which the canal would pass. This new advantageous position meant that it was much easier and cheaper to transport raw materials into the factory and to transport finished wares out. The new purpose-built factory and the surrounding estate became known as Etruria, named after the ancient central state in Italy whose arts, most notably pottery, were being rediscovered in archaeological digs at the time. The opening of the Etruria factory was momentarily interrupted when Wedgwood’s knee problem worsened, becoming so severe that he required an amputation. He was later supplied with a wooden leg and under the care of his wife, Sarah, and with Bentley’s loyal companionship, his recovery was rapid.7 

The production of the ‘First Day’s Vases’ at Etruria marked the beginning of the manufacturing of ‘ornamental’ wares by the Wedgwood and Bentley partnership which was formally agreed in 1769. The Etruria factory was also key to the later successful mass production of ‘Useful’ wares which were produced under the partnership between Josiah and his cousin Thomas. Josiah and his family were to reside on the estate in Etruria Hall and Bentley was given Bank House nearby. Bentley did not choose to reside in Staffordshire however, but preferred to take up residence in London where he could oversee the establishment of a London warehouse and showrooms in St. Martin’s Lane (near the cabinet makers Chippendale, and Vile and Cobb) and later at No. 12 Greek Street in Soho. Bentley also chose to live in the decorating workshop in Chelsea where he could supervise the artists. In London he could keep up to date with changing tastes and styles, manage orders and meet important customers, collect debts and deal with their ever expanding export trade. 
Josiah Wedgwood was working in the pottery industry at a time of great change as a result of industrialisation. The purpose-built Etruria factory8 was equipped with the latest technology including a water-wheel (supplying power by water drawn from the canal) and eight ‘hovels’9 which contained ovens or kilns. There were wide gateways which were used for the delivery of clay and coal and the removal of waste. Wedgwood claimed to be the first to introduce an engine-turning lathe into the pottery industry in 1763. Following experiments and improvements to the design of the lathe, Wedgwood was able to exploit its potential for use on a ‘basaltes’ body. Wedgwood’s invention of the pyrometer, a thermometer which gave an accurate estimate of firing temperatures in a kiln further advanced ceramic production but it could also be used for other scientific purposes.10 Through continual experimentation and refinement of manufacturing processes Wedgwood was able to stream-line production to a consistently high standard at a relatively low cost in order to meet the huge demand for his fashionable ornamental wares. 

Amongst Wedgwood’s wide circle of gifted friends were members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham. The society was established in 1765 with 14 members, all of whom met once a month (as close to a full moon as possible, which would enable a safe journey home) to attend discussions or practical demonstrations. Members included Erasmus Darwin, Wedgwood’s family doctor and poet, Matthew Boulton, the metalworker, ‘toymaker’ and silversmith, James Watt the engineer and inventor, Joseph Priestly a preacher and chemist, and John Whitehurst, horologist and maker of scientific instruments. Wedgwood would have benefitted greatly from discussions with such a creative and innovative group of individuals. He was at the forefront of new scientific developments during an age of enlightenment, discovery and enquiry. 

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Both sides of the ‘First Day’s Vase’ in the Wedgwood Museum. Photo © Wedgwood Museum / WWRD

Wedgwood and ‘The Antique’ 

Wedgwood’s fascination with the ‘Antique’ and rediscovery of the classical world was in part fuelled by the discoveries and excavations at Herculaneum in 1738 and Pompeii in 1763. By the mid-18th century both Rome, and to a lesser extent Naples, had become essential destinations on the Grand Tour. Rome in particular became a place in which artists, collectors and intellectuals could meet and exchange ideas and admire new archaeological discoveries. Piranesi’s publications of views of Rome in the 1740s and Robert Adam’s Ruins of the Palace of Diocletian at Spalato, published in 1764, were widely disseminated, which both popularised classical architecture and lead to a reappraisal of ancient civilisations.11 This obsession with the neo-classical was also a reaction against the extravagances of late Baroque and Rococo designs of the mid-18th century. The neo-classical was deemed elegant, academic and ‘pure’ and Wedgwood was quick to realise the commercial possibilities of this movement. His new stoneware was perfectly suited to the neo-classical ideals of restraint. Always with an eye on the commercial opportunities, many of the shapes of Wedgwood’s vases were based on classical forms, but they were often altered or exaggerated to appeal to his late 18th century cosmopolitan clientele. 
It was not long before Wedgwood noticed that great queues of people had gathered outside his showrooms in London and ‘Vases was all the cry’. Wedgwood’s showrooms in Great Newport Street had become a fashionable meeting place where ‘a violent Vase Madness (was) breaking out’.12 Wedgwood creamware and basaltes were not confined to the mantlepieces of fashionable high society; they had become ‘a universal passion’. Wedgwood took advantage of this fashion when formulating plans for his new Etruria factory. In a letter to Bentley in 1766 he claimed that he wanted to make a great ‘Vase work’ which would ‘Surprise the World’.13 Wedgwood consulted Sir William Chambers in an attempt to establish the difference between ‘Urns & Vases’. He concluded that the characteristic of an urn should be‘simplicity, to have covers but no handles, nor spouts…ornamental…either high or low, but sho’d not seem to be Vessels for culinary, or sacred uses.’ Whereas ‘Vases were such as might be used for libations & other sacrificial, festive & culinary uses, such as Ewers, open vessels &c’.14 This categorisation was important in the publication of future factory catalogues and his Ornamental Shapes Book.15 

Sir William Hamilton was Ambassador to the court of Naples (1764-1800) and during his time in Italy he took a close interest in the excavations taking place at Herculaneum and Pompeii. He formed an important collection of ancient Greek and Italian vases which were sold to the British Museum in 1772. Between 1766 and 1769 a four volume publication by d’Hancarville of Sir William Hamilton’s collection of antique vases ‘Antiquitiés, Etrusques, Grecques et Romaines’ appeared at a time when interest in the classical world was at its height. The publication also helped to popularise the use of decorative garnitures of vases to adorn mantlepieces. Wedgwood had formed an important friendship with Hamilton, who advised him on matters of taste and design while also helping to promote Wedgwood’s pottery amongst royal and aristocratic circles. Wedgwood had access to early proofs of illustrations from Hamilton’s publication which were leant to him by Lord Cathcart16 and he was also presented with the first published volume of the catalogue.17 The red figure decoration on the First Day’s Vases were taken from a vase in Hamilton’s collection, the Meidias Hydra of circa 420-400 BC, which was subsequently sold with the majority of Hamilton’s collection of ancient vases to the British Museum.18 The figural decoration also appears on plate 129 in the first volume of Hamilton’s catalogue; the subject is titled Hercules in the garden of Hesperides19 and the three figures which appear on this particular version of the First Day’s Vase are Oineus, Demophon and Chrysis.20 The form of the vase was copied precisely from a vase which appears as part of an engraving in the preface to Volume I of Hamilton’s catalogue. Hamilton offered Wedgwood valuable advice on the design and interpretation of his antique vase collection, ‘Continue to be very attentive to the simplicity and elegance of the form, which is the chief article…You cannot consult the originals in the museum too often’.21 

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P. d’Hancarville, Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of Honble William Hamilton, 1776, Vol. I, plate 129.

Wedgwood and Bentley also had a vast library of reference books of engravings, from which they copied a number of shapes and bas-reliefs. Amongst these were Jacques Stella’s Livre de Vases and James ‘Athenian’ Stuart’s Antiquities of Athens. Inspiration for vase shapes was drawn from a wide variety of sources including vases seen in London shops, or from the private collections of important patrons. This included Hamilton’s famed Barberini vase, which he sold to the Duchess of Portland, who in turn leant it to Wedgwood who produced celebrated copies of it. Wedgwood owed much to Hamilton for providing an extensive source of design inspiration for vase shapes, decoration and (later) for bas-relief ornament.22 

By 1768 Wedgwood had vases of three different types in production: creamware, variegated ware and black ‘basaltes’. Whilst he had achieved great commercial success and market dominance with his production of creamware, interest in this was waning and new products were required to retain his patrons’ custom. Wedgwood was keen to replicate the look of ‘Egyptian black’ ware which was already in production at other Staffordshire potteries. In order to recreate this black stoneware body, Wedgwood carried out countless experiments on local clay impregnated with carr, an oxide derived from iron residue taken from the local coal mines. He found that he could create a ‘superior’ quality basaltes body by using magnesium to obtain a richer black colour together with west-country clay to give a finer texture. Great care was taken in the purification of the cleansing of the local carr. Wedgwood was so excited by this new fashionable basaltes stoneware that he chose to use it for the production of his First Day’s Vases, rather than use his tried and tested creamware body, as basaltes was perfectly suited for vases in the neo-classical taste. The first trials with black basaltes were probably carried out in July 1766 and in 1768 Wedgwood informed Bentley of the dispatch of twelve crates of wares including ‘a basket containing 2 Etruscan bronze Vases’.23 This is the first mention of the basaltes body as ‘Etruscan’ which may perhaps have been a misunderstanding by Wedgwood as the pottery which was being excavated in Italy was predominately not Etruscan but had been imported from Greece. Wedgwood had also seen illustrations of Etruscan bucchero nero from the 8th century BC which is a black pottery which is moulded or incised with ornament, and this may have inspired his use of the term. Either way, Wedgwood marketed all wares of this type as ‘Etruscan’. The black surface could be polished with leather and then finished to look like simulated bronze, or as in the case of the present vase, decorated with encaustic painting. 

In 1769 Wedgwood took out a patent for both his new bronzing process and for his red-orange encaustic-style decoration. These processes were perfected to emulate the look of ancient bronze vessels and to recreate the Greek red-figure decoration which was seen on black-ground vases painted in Athens in circa 530-400 BC.24 On receiving the first of his encaustic vases which were returned from his London decorating workshop, Wedgwood proclaimed ‘I have seen the vases Encaustick & like them exceedingly’.25 The encaustic decoration on the present vase is most likely to be by the painter William Hopkins Craft, and not by David Rhodes of Leeds, as previously thought. Craft was one of the most skilled painters employed by Wedgwood in their London decorating workshop, and he worked mainly on encaustic decoration of basaltes vases. However, Craft demanded £200 a year, which Wedgwood considered ‘too extravagant to be lasting’26 and their working relationship ended in 1771 when Craft became an independent enameller. 

The death of Thomas Bentley in 178027 was a major loss for Josiah and he proved irreplaceable. A year after Bentley’s death, Wedgwood decided to sell the stock and trade owned under their partnership at Christie’s & Ansell in Pall Mall. The eleven day sale which included 1200 lots caused great excitement and was a huge commercial success. As contemporaries within the art world, James Christie and Josiah Wedgwood would have been part of the same social circles. It seems fitting that we are offering this First Day’s Vase, which encapsulates the creative genius and entrepreneurialism of one of the most celebrated partnerships in British ceramic and industrial history, in 2016, the 250th anniversary of Christie’s. Testament to Wedgwood’s innovation is the epitaph on his monument in Stoke which was modelled by Flaxman: ‘He converted a rude and inconsiderable manufactory into an elegant and an important National Commerce.’ 

1. Correspondence between Josiah Wedgwood and Thomas Bentley is extensively documented in Robin Reilly’s seminal two volume publication, Wedgwood, see Vol. I, p. 437. The comment indicating that the First Day’s Vases were ‘three handled’ is in fact a reference to the finial and two handles. When the Etruria factory was eventually closed on 13 June 1950, 181 years after Wedgwood and Bentley had thrown their six ‘First Day’s Vases’, six ‘Last Day’s Vases’ were made to commemorate the closure. 
2. Robin Reilly, ibid., London, 1989, Vol. I, p. 26. 
3. Wedgwood was at the forefront of new technological developments in transfer-printing on pottery and porcelain. Guy Green and John Sadler ran a transfer printing business in Liverpool where they had an arrangement with Wedgwood whereby he had a monopoly on the use of their transfer prints. Wedgwood sold Sadler and Green his creamware and in turn they decorated the creamware with suitable transfer prints and then sold it back to Wedgwood from their Liverpool warehouse. 
4. Robin Reilly, ibid., London, 1989, Vol. I, p. 47. 
5. See Robin Reilly, ibid., London, 1989, Vol. I, p. 102. 
6. Wedgwood, with the help of his friend Erasmus Darwin produced a pamphlet to popularise the proposed canal project. 
7. See Alison Kelly, The Story of Wedgwood, London, 1975, p. 27. 
8. Wedgwood also considered the welfare of his workers key to a successful manufactory and he provided housing for many of his staff on the grounds of the Etruria estate and even subsidised a ‘sick club’. 
9. A ‘hovel’ is the common term for a bottle kiln. Wedgwood’s initial sketch of the ground-plan of the Etruria factory included eight hovels which he drew in elaborate and amusing shapes including: a beehive, a castellated sheep keep and a milk churn. The Etruria hovels were eventually built in the conventional bottle shape. 
10. Wedgwood was elected a fellow of the Royal Society following his research and development of the pyrometer on 16 January 1783. 
11. Wedgwood was a great admirer of Robert Adam and wrote to Bentley on 7th September 1771 ‘Adam is a Man of Genius & invention & an excellent Architect & Mr. Truman assured me that he knew Mr. Adam’s [sic] kept modellers at Rome employed in copying Bas-reliefs and other things for them a connection with them would be of great use to us’. See Diana Edwards, Black Basalt, Wedgwood and Contemporary Manufacturers, Suffolk, 1994, p. 39. 
12. Robin Reilly, ibid., London, 1989, Vol. I, p. 439. 
13. Robin Reilly ibid., London, 1989, Vol. I, p. 68. 
14. Robin Reilly, ibid., London, 1989, Vol. I, p. 69. 
15. The First Day’s Vases are shape No. 49 in Wedgwood’s Ornamental Shapes Book. 
16. Lord Cathcart was Ambassador to Russia and instrumental in promoting Wedgwood’s pottery to Catherine the Great. This resulted in two important orders for Wedgwood creamware: the Husk Service (1770) and the Frog Service (1773). 
17. Wedgwood & Bentley also looked to other sources for inspiration for their red-figure encaustic wares which included Recueil d’antiquités, Egyptiennes, Etrusques, Grecques, Romaines et Gauloises by Anne-Claude-Philippe, comte de Caylus, which was published in seven volumes in Paris between 1752-1767. 
18. See the British Museum, accession no. 1772,0320.30. 
19. This was a popular subject and appears frequently on ancient Attic red-figured vases. Herakles’s 11th Labour is depicted, in which he is commanded by Eurystheus to steal golden apples belonging to Zeus which had been given to Hera at her wedding and entrusted to the care of the Hesperides (the daughters of Atlas) in the Garden of Hesperides. Herakles persuaded Atlas to fetch the apples for him and in return he shouldered the heavens in place of Atlas. 
20. One of the First Day’s Vases which are in the Wedgwood Museum is decorated with the opposing three figures Hippothon, Antichus and Clymenos taken from the left side of plate 129 from the first volume of William Hamilton’s catalogue. 
21. Robin Reilly, ibid., London, 1989, Vol. I, pp. 82-83 
22. In return for Hamilton’s help, Wedgwood reproduced in black basaltes, white terracotta stoneware and jasperware a portrait medallion of Hamilton of circa 1772. 
23. Robin Reilly, ibid., London, 1989, Vol. I p. 397. 
24. The ancient technique of red-figure decoration involved drawing an outline of a figure (for example) in black on the red body of the vase, the entire body was painted in black slip. Details could then be picked out in black and touched-in with slip which was diluted to a pale brown. The pigment that Wedgwood’s used was his own invention and was part slip and part enamel. 
25. Robin Reilly, ibid., London, 1989, Vol. I, p. 71. 
26. Robin Reilly, Wedgwood, the New Illustrated Dictionary, London, 1995, p. 121. 
27. Epitaphs to the memory of Thomas Bentley were composed by Erasmus Darwin and James ‘Athenian’ Stuart amongst others. 

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Lot 305. The Great Bustard from Augustus The Strong’s Porcelain Menagerie. A Meissen white model of a great bustard (otis tarda), 1732, attributed to Johann Gottlieb Kirchner, incised initials as to the underside of the beak for Andreas Schiefer. Estimate £700,000 - £1,000,000 ($907,200 - $1,296,000). Price Realized £842,500 ($1,091,880) (€984,040). Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2016.

Naturalistically modelled, its neck turned to the right preening its feathers, on a tree trunk base applied with trailing leaves, branches and acorns (minor damages, typical firing flaws, two leaves replaced, some restoration shoring up the tree stump visible on the underside); 33 in. (83.8 cm.) high

Provenance: Supplied to Augustus II (1694-1733), Elector of Saxony and King of Poland for the Japanese Palace, Dresden. 
By descent through the Royal House of Saxony (the House of Wettin). 
Anonymous sale; Christie’s, London, 5 July 1971, lot 126. 
Acquired from the Antique Porcelain Company, New York, 1993.

Property from the Estate of Ogden Mills Phipps

Notes: This extraordinary Meissen model of a Great Bustard (Otis tarda) is one of only six examples delivered to Augustus the Strong in the early 1730s for his porcelain menagerie at the Japanese Palace in the Royal court of Dresden, five of which are extant. Four are now in museum collections. The present example remains the only known model of a Great Bustard in private hands.1 Augustus the Strong’s obsession for his own porcelain factory – the Meissen factory - to surpass Far Eastern porcelain production reached its zenith in the creation of these near life-size animals and birds. One of twenty-eight varieties of birds modelled for the Japanese Palace, the bustard is amongst the rarest by the Meissen modeller Johann Gottlieb Kirchner. Dresden was the greatest Baroque city in Northern German and Augustus’s lavish court rivaled that of Versailles. The birds and animals were to become the centerpiece of Augustus the Strong’s porzellanschloss at Dresden - a lavish display of the skillful virtuosity of the Meissen modellers considered today to be the most important of porcelain sculpture.

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Portrait of Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, after Louis de Silvestre.

The Development of the Japanese Palace 
In 1714 Field Marshall and Privy Cabinet Minister Count Jakob Heinrich von Flemming bought several plots of land to the right side of the bank of the Elbe where a small palace was built, known as the Holländisches Palais or Dutch Palace on account of its furnishings. Augustus the Strong acquired the palace in 1717 in exchange for land worth 100,000 Thalers and he became intently involved in the remodelling and furnishing of the palace. Augustus had part of the kunstkammer installed in the attic in 1717: ‘His Royal Majesty bought the palace for a large sum of money in 1717 on account of its splendor and excellent situation, and has preserved it for posterity under the name of the Japanese Palace…Having done this, he had the world-famous kunstkammer bought to this palace three years ago from Neu-Dresden for the sake of good air.’ 2 

This is the earliest reference to the palace as the Japanese Palace and an indication of Augustus’s move to create aPorzellanschloss. The palace became the centre of royal festivities in 1719 when Augustus hosted a celebration of the marriage of his son, Prince Friedrich Augustus II to Maria Josepha of Austria. Guests included important European royal and nobility and Augustus the Strong wanted to be sure that they would be impressed and amazed by the magnificence of the furnishings and decoration. The palace was used to host a number of celebrations in the 1720s and it became a centerpiece to his string of castles and palaces around Dresden. Augustus had initially planned to remodel Schloss Pillnitz to house his expanding porcelain collection, in the style of a ‘Saxon Versailles’. However, plans to redevelop Pillnitz did not come to fruition. Instead, Augustus transferred his attention to the expansion and remodelling of the Dutch Palace which would be designed specifically to house the Royal porcelain collection. The palace was to include 32 rooms spread across a four-wing layout with projecting corner pavilion. The work was orchestrated by General Jean de Bodt and three Oberlandbaumeister, the chief architects of Saxony - Pöpelmann, Zacharias Longuelune, and Knevel.3 Architectural plans for the interior scheme of the Japanese Palace were rigorously overseen by Augustus the Strong himself with many of the ground plans annotated or amended in his own hand. 

Augustus’s acquisition of porcelain was closely tied to the specific requirements of his planned interior layout. A hand-drawn plan of 1728 clearly indicates that he had intended to group his porcelain according to colour or type, rather than using it to furnish the palace in the traditional sense. The interior decoration of the palace was closely tied to the decoration of the porcelain, its walls to be clad in embroidered Indian satin and lacquer. Numerous alterations to the interiors schemes were made by Augustus during the planning stage but it is clear that he intended that the ground floor should be furnished with Far Eastern porcelain. Surviving plans for the upper story of the palace suggest that the porcelain was to be grouped according to colour or type (celadon, purple or green coloured porcelain for example4). The palace was intended to provide a courtly function but it also had symbolic significance at a political, cultural and spiritual level. Walking through room after room filled with jewel-like porcelain, guests would eventually arrive at the purple throne room in which there would be a porcelain throne and a porcelain Glockenspiel. 

The elevations and cross-sections show pagoda-like roofs painted with indianische Blumen5, similar to the roofs of the Zwinger. The chinoiserie pagoda design was used in the two-stepped baldacchinos which are above the corner pavilions’ middle window. The decoration in relief above the Neustadt side of the portico depicts Minerva enthroned as Goddess of Trade being offered porcelain treasures from Far Eastern figures and clearly indicates the identity of the building. Other elements of the building design related to Meissen porcelain production including the inner courtyard which features herm pilasters in the form of grinning pot-bellied chinamen. These figures were probably inspired by models made by the sculptor Johann Christian Kirchner. However, a later floor plan indicates that ‘all sorts of animals with red-lacquered porcelain or brown porcelain’ were planned for the large Neustadt-side gallery. 

Augustus the Strong made regular inspections of the project before his trips to Poland. Although he was never to see the finished palace as he died in Warsaw on 1 February 1733, the work remained on-going. Augustus III continued with some of his father’s plans, however the plans for the interior were given up in around 1740. 

Technical innovations and developments at the Meissen manufactory meant that by 1730 Böttger’s earlier claims ‘that in the future, given the right design and production, white porcelain of this kind…shall be able to surpass Asian porcelain by far, not only in beauty and quality, but also in variety of shapes and large pieces, some even solid, such as statues, columns, service and so on’ were fast becoming a reality.6 Augustus the Strong’s obsession to surpass Far Eastern production in a display of technical virtuosity could be embodied in the production of ‘life-size’ animals. Several of Augustus’ palaces had animal enclosures and these were important in Princely lavish displays of power. The use of wild and exotic animals during pageants was intended not only to astonish the crowd but to demonstrate the Prince’s power over these magnificent creatures. It was also in keeping with the Baroque idea of bringing order to the world. 

Contemporary accounts of events at Schloss Moritzburg talk of themed processions in which figures in costume were accompanied by ‘lions, tigers, bears, parrots, all manner of monkeys, and the like’.7 Like many of his royal contemporaries, Augustus the Strong collected exotic birds and animals and he was a keen and accomplished huntsman. His menagerie or Löwenhaus (lion house) was central to court life at Dresden and it included a number of savage beasts which were used for animal fights and hunting. Augustus also received several gifts of exotic animals, including a present from the King of Sweden in 1731 ‘….a lion and lioness, and also two tigers, are good-looking beasts, excepting that the lion only has one eye’.8 Augustus even tried to purchase rare specimens of animals in exchange for Meissen porcelain, both being highly prized ‘commodities’. This included polar bears and artic foxes which he acquired through the Saxon ambassador in St. Petersburg.9 If Augustus could not trade his valuable Meissen porcelain, he sought out rare beasts through the East India Company which had a flourishing trade in rare and exotic animals and birds. Huge amounts of money exchanged hands for unusual and exotic species. A letter dated 16 February 1717 records the cost of a crane at a 1000 gulden and a cockatoo for 300. 

As a young man, Augustus the Strong had embarked on a Grand Tour of Europe (1687-9). The splendor of the architecture and artistic display seen on his visit to the Court of Louis XIV at Versailles left a deep impression of the power and authority that could come from lavish and creative displays of artistry. The French royal court was the first to bring together a royal collection of animals in an enclosure similar to that of a menagerie. During his visit, Augustus took note of the maze that had been built at Versailles. Designed by André LeNôtre and Charles Perrault in 1673-74 and centred around 39 fountains which were modelled on the theme of La Fontaine’s fables, each fountain was modelled in lead and coloured as an animal, with the head and mouth forming the spout. These fabulous creatures were combined with trellis, grottos, shells and hedge to create a mystical world. Animal sculpture was popular in Baroque gardens and architectural schemes, where they were often used as heraldic devices, but their representation could also convey a deeper meaning, not lost on the young Augustus. 

With the arrival of the Kunstkammer, plans to fill the palace with porcelain were already underway. Once visitors had reached the upper story, they would then pass along the Neustadt-side gallery where the animal models were to be displayed. The decision to use the large Neustad-side gallery for the display of the animals was made in the summer of 1730 and the success of the project was dependent on the Modellmeister having not only the creativity but also a deep understanding of the technical challenges that such an ambitious project would bring. 

The task of creating the porcelain menagerie was given to Gottlieb Kirchner, who was the first sculptor permanently employed by the factory. He had been taken on initially as a modeller at Meissen but was now responsible for the realisation of these models in porcelain. Kirchner was a difficult character but he had valuable experience of working in porcelain which was essential to the early successes of the factory. He was joined shortly after by Johann Joachim Kändler who was employed as an assistant in June 1731. As a sculptor, Kändler had never worked in porcelain before but his unique style and skills developed quickly. B oth modelers either studied their subjects from live beasts in the collection of the Mortizburg menagerie or the Dresden Löwenhaus, or sketched them from specimens in theAnimaliengalerie at the Zwinger in Dresden. When Kirchner was making his only large bird model, the bustard, he may well have been influenced by the cassowary which Kändler had made a month before. In all other figures, however there are very few parallels of this kind as both sculptors had a distinct and unique style.10 

When the animals and birds were finally delivered to the Japanese Palace, the rooms were still not ready and so they were simply stored rather than displayed there. Dresden inventories show that the number of animals stored at the palace slowly depleted as some were put on display elsewhere (for example in the Tower Room at the Residence), a few were damaged and others were given away as Royal gifts. It is interesting to note that a bill from the end of December 1732 titled ‘for the animals and birds hitherto delivered to the Japanese Palace’ amounted to a fifth of Augustus the Strong’s total porcelain debts.11 

The vast majority of the larger animals and birds remained together until the beginning of the Seven Years’ War in 1756 when they were moved to the cellar of the palace. In the late 18th century, Count Camillo Marcolini attempted to move the figures to the Zwinger, as he felt that they would be better appreciated within the curated context of a museum. This did not materialize, however, and the figures remained in the cellar until they were eventually transferred with the remainder of the collection to the Johanneum (a former stable building). Here the animals were seen in all of their sculptural glory. The porcelain collection was installed in a porcelain gallery which was set up in the castle banqueting hall. In the early part of the 20th century, plans were reformulated to house the collection at the Zwinger where it was partially displayed in 1939. The Porzellansammlung opened to the public in 1962 in its current home in the Zwinger. 

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Johann Auguste Corvinus’s view of the Dutch Palace in Dresden, 1719, which was later extended into the Japanese Palace.Engraving© bpk / Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden / Renate Schurz

The Making of the Menagerie 

The process of producing birds and animals on such a monumental scale was fraught with technical difficulties and all Japanese Palace models bear the physical signs of these challenges. The first stage in the creation of these models was for the artists Kirchner and Kändler (and later, to a much lesser extent Johann Friedrich Eberlein) to produce an original model in clay. Kirchner notes in his working report of November 1732 that he had ‘made, en plein air, the roughest of models’ of three wild cats and a porcupine.12 This model could be cut into sections and plaster casts could then be taken of each section. A large bird or animal was assembled from several moulds which were then reassembled and fitted on to a base, or left free-standing. The initial model had to be made bigger than the size intended for the end product as the porcelain could reduce in size by around a sixth following drying and firing. The porcelain paste itself was mixed according to a recipe that varied depending on the nature of the model being produced. The main problem during the first few years of production was getting a model successfully through the firing process in a stable and undamaged state with as few imperfections as possible. The process was highly experimental and changes to the paste and glaze recipe were frequently made, which often resulted in a granular texture or a grey colour. 

Producing porcelain on such a large scale was a demanding task and for practical reasons the craftsmen involved often worked in a team, with the moulder working alongside a repairer who would assemble and finish the piece. Models are rarely marked although the bustard bears the ‘AS’ mark of the repairer Andreas Schiefer, whose distinctive incising and hatching can be seen on this model, the bustard in the collection of Henry Arnhold and the three cats in the Dresden collection which also bear Andreas Schiefer’s mark. When the model had been assembled and the repairer had achieved a degree of finesse by both blending the different parts of the model together and picking out details, the model was then set aside to dry out to the 'leather-hard' stage.13 As they were particularly large, this took about three months. They had to be dried out slowly, in humid conditions, as rapid drying would induce an early version of the cracking problem that is so very typical of the Japanese Place animals. 

Prior to glazing the model was given a low-temperature ‘biscuit’ firing. Large figures of animals and birds were too big to be dunked in glaze but had to be ‘basted’ with areas touched-up with a brush. The final firing process posed the greatest challenge as the contraction of the paste (in opposition to the weight of the figure) often resulted in shrinkage, sagging and extensive firing cracks. Those models which were more vertically orientated (such as Kirchner’s bustard) often fared better during the firing process than those which were constructed as a horizontal structure (such as the pelican) and therefore it was possible to use a more refined paste which gave them a finer appearance. Experiments were carried out with different types of bases and supports to stablise the figures and avoid sagging. Interior ‘scaffolding’ was used to brace the inside of bases with plates and cylinders. Following the firing, during which there was a large level of wastage, severe firing cracks were filled using a sticky brown resin or in the case of very large cracks, these were filled with wood and then filled. 

The six bustards which are recorded in the 1731-34 delivery to the Japanese Palace were all decorated with cold colours, as the risks involved with an enamel firing would have been too great for models of these size.14 Interestingly not all of the animals were decorated and Kändler did not approve of the decoration, which he felt spoilt the sculptural qualities of the animals. At some later point, most of the coloured animals were deliberately stripped of their decoration, as photographs of the displays of animals in the Zwinger Palace taken in the late 19th Century show them in the white. It is therefore likely that a decision was taken that the cold enamel had become so degraded that it should be removed. 

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Zacharius Longuelune’s ink and wash designs showing porcelain on brackets for the furnishing of the Neustadt-side gallery of the Japanese Palace, Dresden, before 1730. © Courtesy of the Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Dresden.

1. Four models of bustards were ordered for the Japanese Palace in November 1732, although five examples were subsequently delivered between 1731-34. All of them are recorded as decorated with cold colours that were later removed. Oddly, six models of bustards are recorded in the Royal collection of Saxony in the Inventarium of 1770 and again in 1779. However, Samuel Wittwer records only five as extant in 2006: two white examples of bustards in the Dresden Porcelain Collection, an example in the Frick Collection from the collection of Henry Arnhold, another in the Museo Civico, Turin and a fifth in ‘a private Italian collection’, which is most likely the present example. See Samuel Wittwer, The Gallery of Meissen Animals, Munich, 2006, pp. 330-331. 
2. Samuel Wittwer, Ibid., 2006, Munich, p. 32. 
3. Samuel Wittwer, Ibid., 2006, Munich, p. 34. 
4. Samuel Wittwer illustrates the assorted floorplans, see ibid., 2006, Munich, p. 33, figs. 31-33. The symbolic significance of the coloured displays of porcelain in each room would not have been lost on visitors to the Palace. Each room represented a different quality or state which was expressed through colour, for example red conveyed power, green symbolised humility, yellow conveyed splendour, blue gave a sense of divinity, before arriving into the throne room which was decorated in purple which conveyed authority. 5. Samuel Wittwer, Ibid., 2006, Munich, p. 35 
6. Samuel Wittwer, ibid., Munich, 2006, p. 59, quoted from Zimmermann 1908, 322. 
7. Samuel Wittwer, ibid., Munich, 2006, p. 60 where the author cites Johann Michael von Leon’s 1740 account of a parade which took place on 14th October 1718. 
8. Samuel Wittwer, ibid., Munich, 2006, p. 63 where the author cites the lion keeper. 
9. Samuel Wittwer, ibid., Munich, 2006, p. 64. 
10. Samuel Wittwer, ibid., Munich, 2006, p. 116. 
11. Samuel Wittwer, Ibid., Munich, 2006, p. 51. 
12. Cited by Samuel Wittwer, ibid., 2006, pp. 77 & 250. 
13. Models such as the bustard, were required to become gradually thinner towards the top so that they did not collapse under their own weight during the firing. 
14. The court painter and lacquer Christian Reinow appears to have been employed to decorate white models with a sealed lacquer finish following the application of oil paints.

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Lot 330. A pair of Sèvres two-handled bleu céleste ice-pails, covers and liners (seaux ‘à glace’) from the Catherine The Great service, circa 1778-1779, one with blue interlaced L marks enclosing date letters AA, FB for Francois-Marie Barrat, B for Jean-Pierre Boulanger and grey LG for Le Guay, the other with mauve interlaced L mark and LG for Le Guay, both liners with mauve interlaced L marks and LG marks for Le Guay. Estimate £700,000 - £1,000,000 ($907,200 - $1,296,000). Price Realized £842,500 ($1,091,880) (€984,040). Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2016.

Of urn-shaped form with richly-gilt female herm handles, the gilt-scroll friezes painted with simulated portrait cameos and antique mythological bas reliefs, the lower parts with up-turned gilt laurel leaves, a white beaded border simulating pearls below and at the rim, the covers with gilt fountain handles above a band of flowers enclosed by a frieze of gilt scrolls divided by cameos, amorous and Bacchic trophy medallions and Imperial crowned EII cypher medallions, the exterior of the galleried sides each mounted with four cut hard-paste portrait cameos within gilt-copper laurel garlands, below undulating rims moulded with gilt frozen overflowing water, slight wear to gilding, oneseau broken and restored, one liner with restored rim chip and very small restored chipping to edge of well, one cover with stem of finial restored and small restored rim chip; 9 ¾ in. (24.8 cm.) high

Provenance: Delivered to Prince Grigori Potemkin in St. Petersburg as part of a large dinner, dessert, tea and coffee-service in October 1779 as a gift from Empress Catherine the Great of Russia. 
Given by Prince Potemkin to Empress Catherine the Great of Russia and moved to the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg, on 26 July 1782, and by descent to 
Tsar Alexander I of Russia 
Taken from the Winter Palace during the fire of 17 December 1837. 
Presumably shipped to London by Ferdinando Civiliotti and sold to the dealers Storr and Mortimer, 156 New Bond Street, London. 
Acquired probably by 20 July 1840 or by 21 July 1842 by William Viscount Lowther (later 2nd Earl of Lonsdale, from 1844), Carlton House Terrace, London. 
Octavius E. Coope Collection, of Rochetts, near Brentwood, probably via the dealer John Webb, 22 Cork Street, Mayfair, London. 
Octavius E. Coope posthumous sale; Christie’s, London, 3 May 1910, lot 167 (illustrated), and sold to Goldschmidt. 
Walter and Catalina von Pannwitz Collection, Hartekamp Castle, Heemstede Holland, by 1925. 
Acquired from Rosenberg & Stiebel, New York, 1993.

Property of Dimitri Mavrommatis

Literature: Otto von Falke, Die Kunstsammlung von Pannwitz, Munich, 1925, Vol. II, p. 37, nos. 428-29, pl. LXXIV. 
Rosalind Savill, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, London, 1988, p. 773 and p. 782, note 102. 
Adrian Sassoon, Vincennes and Sèvres Porcelain from a European Private Collection, Exhibition Catalogue, The International Ceramics Fair and Seminar, London, 2001, pp. 5-6. 
Valérie Bougault, ‘La passion du Sèvres’, Connaissance des Arts, October 2004, p. 61 (unillustrated). 
Oscar Humphries, ‘House of Wonders’, Apollo Magazine, March 2013, p. 88.

Exhibited: London, The International Ceramics Fair and Seminar, Vincennes and Sèvres Porcelain from a European Private Collection, 15-18 June 2001, no. 17.

Notes: These ice-pails, or seaux ‘à glace’, are from the famous Catherine the Great Service, also known as the ‘Cameo Service’ or Service aux Camées. The Cameo Service was the most elaborate and expensive service ever produced by Sèvres. Pieces from it rarely appear on the market as the majority of the service is in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg. Sèvres made 10 seaux ‘à glace’ for the service, 4 of which are in the Wallace Collection, London, and 4 of which are in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg. The remaining 2, the present seaux ‘à glace’, are the only examples in private hands.1 There is a small group of pieces from the service (of other forms) which are not in the Hermitage, and most of these pieces are in museums.2 

The Cameo Service was the product of a love affair between Catherine the Great and Prince Grigori Potemkin. Catherine met Potemkin on the day of her coup, when she had her husband, Tsar Peter III, strangled. An act of gallantry brought the 28 year-old guardsman Potemkin to her attention, and he subsequently became part of her inner circle. As his rapport with the Empress grew, so did the jealousy of her lover at the time, Alexei Orlov. After her affair with Orlov had ended, she briefly turned her attentions to Alexander Vasilchikov before Potemkin engineered his replacement as her lover in January 1774. Catherine became utterly smitten with Potemkin, a witty and dashing war hero of over six feet tall, and it is possible that they married secretly.3 Aside from his blue-eyed good looks, he was also one of Russia’s finest cavalry commanders. In June 1774 Catherine wrote to him: ‘My darling, darling my dear, my beloved, I have lost all common sense today. Love, love is the reason. I love you with my heart, mind, soul and body. I love you with all my senses and shall love you eternally’.4 In 1776 she ennobled Potemkin and gave him Anichkov House, a large residence by the river Neva. Other lavish gifts, including the Cameo Service, followed. 

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Portrait of Catherine the Great, after Alexander Roslin and Fedor Rokotov. © Christie’s Images.

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Portrait of Prince Grigory Potemkin, by a follower of Johann-Baptist Lampi. © Christie’s Images.

In 1776 the Empress commissioned the Cameo Service via her lover, Prince Potemkin. A recently discovered letter that she wrote to Baron Friedrich Melchior von Grimm5 in March 1778 reveals that although the order for the service was commissioned in her name, she intended it to be a gift to Potemkin. She purposefully ordered it for herself to ensure that Sèvres produced a service of the very highest quality; 'Le service de Sèvres que j’ai commandé est pour le premier rongeur de doigts de l’univers, pour mon cher et bien-aimé prince Potemkine, et pour qu’il soit le plus beau, j’ai dit qu’il est pour moi’ (The Sèvres service that I ordered is for the most nervous and impatient man in the universe, for my dear and beloved Prince Potemkin, and, in order that it be as beautiful as possible, I said that it was for me’).6 On 16th July Potemkin instructed the director of the cabinet of Her Imperial Majesty, K.V. Olsufyev, to order the service through Prince Ivan Sergeyvich Bariatinsky, her ambassador to Louis XVI’s Court at Versailles. Potemkin’s instructions were that the dinner, dessert, tea and coffee-service should be for sixty placings, and that it should be in ‘the best and newest style, with Her Majesty’s monogram on every piece’, and that it should be ‘without any deviation from antique models, with reproductions of cameos’.7 The Imperial EII cypher (for Ekaterina II) was used, and Catherine also specified that the ground colour should be bleu celeste, imitating turquoise stone, and a particular hue of ‘bleu celeste imitant la turquoise’ was used. 

The technical difficulty of fulfilling Catherine’s choice of ground colour and the inclusion of ‘cameos’ led to the service’s most extraordinary and innovative feature; the grandest pieces of the service are mounted with hard-paste cameos which are cut with portraits to resemble real cameos.8 As Savill notes, the inclusion of cut simulated cameos were almost certainly Catherine’s idea because when she balked at the price of the service, and her ambassador Bariatinsky investigated the reasons for the extremely high price, he was reminded by the factory that the expense of the service was partly due to his request to include the cameos.9 

In order to fulfil the imperial order, Sèvres had to solve a major technical difficulty: only a soft-paste porcelain body was suitable for the bleu celeste ground colour,10 but only the newly developed hard-paste porcelain was suitable to be cut to simulate cameos. The ingenious solution to this problem was to set the hard-paste cameos into the soft-paste body of the most important pieces, and fix them in place with gilt-copper laurel-garland mounts.11 The hard-paste cameos were produced by fusing two layers of a dark reddish-brown hard paste and white hard paste together and then cutting through the top white layer with stone-cutting wheels to create the effect of antique Greek and Roman agate-onyx cameos. New mills to power the cutting-wheels were designed and built at Sèvres with a lapidary workshop above, and this process cost 40,000 livres. Each cut cameo was charged at 96 livres, and the overall cost of each seau à glace was a prodigious 2,058 livres - 10 times the cost of other seaux à glace (of conventional form) with best quality decoration. The hard-paste cameos were complimented by painted cameos which only cost 8 livres each, and an innovative form of transfer-printing was used for the initial outline of these cameos.12 The painted simulated bas-relief scenes were based on antique medallions and bracelets. 

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The first hard-paste cameo experiments were taken to Versailles for Louis XVI’s approval on 24th December 1777, and a surviving memorandum (which may have been sent with the cameos) suggests that the designs for the cameos in the service were based on antique originals in the king’s collection, as it asked if he would allow the factory to copy some of the cameos in the cabinet du Roi.13 As Savill notes: ‘red-wax casts (possibly from the originals), plaster and unmounted porcelain versions are at Sèvres’.14 It is interesting to note the striking similarity between the head of Jupiter on one of the present seaux à glace to that in a vignette published in the catalogue of the cameo collection of the King’s cousin, Louis Philippe Joseph, duc d’Orléans. This vignette, engraved by Auguste de St. Aubin, features a head of Jupiter after an engraving by Francesco Bartolozzi of a gold medal in the collection of the lawyer and collector Matthew Duane in London. It is perhaps possible that Sèvres utilised the Bartolozzi print as a source for this cameo (or Auguste de St. Aubin’s engraving if they had access to it).15 Only a few years later, the duc d’Orléans sold his cameo collection to Catherine The Great in 1787 to pay off his gambling debts. 

The other important innovative feature of the service was its design and decoration. The Cameo Service was the first service to be made in the neo-classical style, for which completely new sets of designs and moulds were required. None of these were ever reused. Louis-Simon Boizot, the head of the sculptors’ workshop, most probably designed the forms of the service. Having been to Rome, Boizot had the necessary schooling in classical vocabulary, and, in addition to the dinner, dessert, coffee and tea-service he designed a large white biscuit centrepiece and ninety white biscuit table-decoration figures as a compliment to the wares.16 The gilt scroll friezes were based on the frieze of the Theatre of Marcellus in Rome,17 and the white bead-ornament borders simulated pearls. 

In order to fulfil the imperial order, Sèvres had to solve a major technical difficulty: only a soft-paste porcelain body was suitable for the bleu celeste ground colour,10 but only the newly developed hard-paste porcelain was suitable to be cut to simulate cameos. The ingenious solution to this problem was to set the hard-paste cameos into the soft-paste body of the most important pieces, and fix them in place with gilt-copper laurel-garland mounts.11 The hard-paste cameos were produced by fusing two layers of a dark reddish-brown hard paste and white hard paste together and then cutting through the top white layer with stone-cutting wheels to create the effect of antique Greek and Roman agate-onyx cameos. New mills to power the cutting-wheels were designed and built at Sèvres with a lapidary workshop above, and this process cost 40,000 livres. Each cut cameo was charged at 96 livres, and the overall cost of each seau à glace was a prodigious 2,058 livres - 10 times the cost of other seaux à glace (of conventional form) with best quality decoration. The hard-paste cameos were complimented by painted cameos which only cost 8 livres each, and an innovative form of transfer-printing was used for the initial outline of these cameos.12 The painted simulated bas-relief scenes were based on antique medallions and bracelets. 

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The first hard-paste cameo experiments were taken to Versailles for Louis XVI’s approval on 24th December 1777, and a surviving memorandum (which may have been sent with the cameos) suggests that the designs for the cameos in the service were based on antique originals in the king’s collection, as it asked if he would allow the factory to copy some of the cameos in the cabinet du Roi.13 As Savill notes: ‘red-wax casts (possibly from the originals), plaster and unmounted porcelain versions are at Sèvres’.14 It is interesting to note the striking similarity between the head of Jupiter on one of the present seaux à glace to that in a vignette published in the catalogue of the cameo collection of the King’s cousin, Louis Philippe Joseph, duc d’Orléans. This vignette, engraved by Auguste de St. Aubin, features a head of Jupiter after an engraving by Francesco Bartolozzi of a gold medal in the collection of the lawyer and collector Matthew Duane in London. It is perhaps possible that Sèvres utilised the Bartolozzi print as a source for this cameo (or Auguste de St. Aubin’s engraving if they had access to it).15 Only a few years later, the duc d’Orléans sold his cameo collection to Catherine The Great in 1787 to pay off his gambling debts. 

The other important innovative feature of the service was its design and decoration. The Cameo Service was the first service to be made in the neo-classical style, for which completely new sets of designs and moulds were required. None of these were ever reused. Louis-Simon Boizot, the head of the sculptors’ workshop, most probably designed the forms of the service. Having been to Rome, Boizot had the necessary schooling in classical vocabulary, and, in addition to the dinner, dessert, coffee and tea-service he designed a large white biscuit centrepiece and ninety white biscuit table-decoration figures as a compliment to the wares.16 The gilt scroll friezes were based on the frieze of the Theatre of Marcellus in Rome,17 and the white bead-ornament borders simulated pearls. 

To complete the commission, Sèvres called upon many of its greatest resources; at least 37 of its 69 painters, 5 of its 13 gilders and nearly all of its modellers and kiln managers. The completion of the project brought about a stylistic revolution and many technical innovations (which ultimately expanded the production capabilities of Sèvres), but it also brought the factory close to bankruptcy. The year 1777 was largely dedicated to the project and to the creation of new forms and elaborate decorative schemes. The following year was largely devoted to painting and 1779 to gilding, firing and the burnishing of the pieces. On 20th May 1779 Louis XVI visited the factory five days after the final seau ‘à bouteille’ had been fired. 

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It is not absolutely clear what the total cost of the service was, or exactly how many pieces were sent to St. Petersburg. Although the manufactory Registres du magasin des Ventes recorded a list of 778 pieces for the service and 77 pieces for the centrepiece, it corresponds neither to the total number appearing in the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs records, nor to the number of objects noted as received in St. Petersburg. It is thought that the final total cost was 331,317 livres, a truly prodigious sum, which Catherine paid in instalments, with the final instalment of 90,000 livresclearing the bill in 1792. Surviving correspondence tracing the evolution of the project is retained at Sèvres, at the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris (which retains a bound volume of Dessins et Devis du Service de Porcelaine pour l'Imperatrice de Russie 1778), and at the Archives of St. Petersburg. 

The completed service was dispatched to Russia by sea on a Dutch ship from Rouen in June 1779, arriving at St. Petersburg in October, where it was delivered Potemkin at the Tauride Palace. The service had taken almost four years to produce, and by the time it arrived Catherine and Potemkin’s tempestuous affair was already over. The cracks in their relationship had begun to appear in the middle of 1775, so presumably one of Catherine’s motivations for the quantity and quality of the gifts that she bestowed upon him was an attempt to keep the relationship on course. Potemkin’s temper frequently flared up and his passion for Catherine was waning. Catherine wrote to him: “I ask God to forgive you your vain despair and violence but also your injustice to me. I believe that you love me in spite of the fact that often there is no trace of love in your words’.18 

Although they were ultimately unable to make their relationship work as lovers, they remained devoted to one another platonically, and (which shocked Europe at the time), they both arranged to take on younger lovers. Over the years Catherine continued her pursuit of younger men and they were usually procured by Potemkin, being vetted first for venereal disease by the Scottish doctor John Rogerson.19 When Potemkin sold Anichkov to pay his debts, Catherine bought it back, and he gave the Sèvres Cameo Service to Catherine. The service arrived at the Winter Palace on 26th July 1782. 

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As replacements for the service were made by the Imperial porcelain factory in the 19th century, the service must have been used at the Winter Palace. Catherine would (presumably) have used the service for State Banquets, and, when it was not in use, the service was probably put on display.20 The seaux ‘à glace’, or ice-pails, were important components of the service and their function was to keep ice-cream or sorbet cool. The ice-cream or sorbet would have been put in the liners, and crushed ice to keep it cool was put in the main bodies of the pails. The covers have raised galleried sides which allowed them to be packed with ice as well. Ice-creams or sorbets were filled with fruit juices, chocolate or cream, and they were drunk in a semi-liquid state from small tasses ‘à glaces’.21 

After the fire at the Winter Palace on 17th December 1837 a large number of pieces from the service (approximately 160) were looted. The stolen pieces passed via Ferdinando Civilotti to the London dealers Storr and Mortimer of 156 New Bond Street.22 Sèvres made 10 seaux ‘à glace’ for the service, and 7 of these were stolen during the Winter Palace fire and taken to London. By 20th July 1840 Viscount Lowther (1787-1872, later 2nd Earl of Londsdale, from 1844) had bought 129 or 130 pieces, and these were followed by a further 20 pieces by 21st July 1842. In 1856 Lord Lonsdale started selling various objects d’art at Christie’s, the same year that he also sold 156 of his Cameo Service pieces to the London dealer John Webb (keeping a small group of the Cameo Service pieces).23 In the same year the French Embassy notified the Russian Court that a London dealer had 156 pieces of the Cameo Service.24 The large group of pieces which John Webb sold to Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford,25 included 5 seaux à‘glace’. Lord Hertford subsequently sold the majority of his pieces back to Tsar Alexander II of Russia in 1856-57,26 including one of his five seaux ‘à glace’, but he kept the best six pieces of the Cameo Service for himself, of which four were theseaux ‘à glace’ now in the Wallace Collection, London. Today there are four seaux ‘à glace’ in the Hermitage, one of which was returned by Lord Hertford. 

It is less clear how the present two seaux ‘à glace’ passed from the Earl of Lonsdale’s collection to the collection of Octavius Edward Coope (1814-1886). Lord Lonsdale had a series of sales at Christie’s between 1856 and 1887, but these ice-pails do not appear in any of those auctions. Although it is possible that he sold them directly to Coope, it is more probable that he sold them to the dealer John Webb in 1856 along with all the other pieces, and that John Web sold five of the seaux ‘à glace’ to Lord Hertford and two of the seaux ‘à glace’ to Octavius Coope. 

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Watercolour design for the seau ‘à glace’, Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.

PAINTERS AND GILDERS 

The LG marks for Le Guay are almost certainly for Étienne-Henry Le Guay (l’aîné, or père, at the time these seauxwere being made), rather than Pierre-André Le Guay, who used a similar mark. Étienne-Henry Le Guay was initially a painter at Sèvres, but he then became a gilder, often working on friezes. Although one of these seaux ‘à glace’ bears a mark for Jean-Pierre Boulanger, also a gilder, the gilding of these seaux was carried out by Le Guay, as only his name appears in the records for gilding on this form in the service. This tallies with the fact that it was Le Guay who put his mark on the liners, which have gilt decoration only. Jean-Pierre Boulanger was a painter of patterns as well as being a gilder, and he was active at Sèvres from 1754 to 1785. François-Marie Barrat (oncle) was a flower painter active at Sèvres from 1769 to 1791, and from 1795 to 1796, and in 1779 he was the only artist recorded painting flowers on seaux ‘à glaces’ for the service. 

The significance of the scratched # mark on the underside of one cover and scratched B on the other is unknown, and it is interesting to note that two of the four covers on the Wallace Collection examples also bear scratched marks (one is scratched with D, the other with XX). All ten ice-pails were given the final firings between 13th July 1778 and 29th March 1779.