Pair of Large Sèvres Vases from the French Royal Collection
French, 1819
With gilded decoration on a blue ground after designs by Saint-Ange,(1) the views painted by Jean-Baptiste Langlacé, the gilding by Antoine-Gabriel Boullemier. 1819.
Height 26½" (67cm).
Marked with interlaced Ls enclosing fleur-de-lys, painter's and gilder's marks, and dates ‘17 fev. 18' and ‘9 fev. 19'. Gilt-metal plinths struck with Château de St. Cloud inventory marks.
Provenance :- Bought by Louis XVIII, 1819; by descent in the French Royal and Imperial families, at Château de St. Cloud, Paris; subsequently, Earls of Beauchamp, Madresfield Court, Worcestershire.
These vases were bought by Louis XVIII from the Sèvres factory in 1819.(2) They were exhibited at a Sèvres Exhibition in January 1820,(3) where they are described in detail in the contemporary catalogue: ‘Two vases, called Medici urns, royal-blue grounds, gilt aquatic plant ornaments ... on one a view of the springs at Royat, near Clermont, in the Auvergne. On the other, a view of the plateau of Royat and the village. These views were painted by M. Langlacé after drawings made in situ in those places by the Baron of Villedavray, the superintendent of the Royal Wardrobe. The ornaments in gold were executed by M. Boullemier the younger, after a design by Mr. Saint-Ange, the Royal Draftsman'. Château de St. Cloud, until its destruction during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, was the residence of several French rulers, and was the site of a coup d'état led by Napoléon Bonaparte in 1799. After the French Revolution it was owned by the state and became Napoléon's favourite palace. With the re-establishment of the Monarchy, Louis XVIII took up residence, followed by Charles X, and in 1852 St. Cloud was the venue for the investiture of Napoléon III.
Madresfield Court, Worcestershire, has been in the possession of the Lygon family since the 12th Century.(4) The family's fortunes greatly increased in the early-19th Century and Catherine, Lady Beauchamp, was actively buying in Paris from the 1820s up until her death in 1840, which is possibly when these present vases were acquired, though when exactly they came to Madresfield is not known.(5)
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Footnotes
1. Jacques-Louis de La Hamayde de Saint-Ange (1780-1860) studied under Antoine Vaudoyer and then with Percier and Fontaine. He entered the Imperial workshops under the patronage of Alexandre- Théodore Brongniart in 1806. He was made Dessinateur du Garde-Meuble de la Couronne in 1816. As well as designing for Sèvres, Saint-Ange became increasingly well-known for his designs for textiles.
2. Register Vv, folio 137, no. 41 registers their sale on 23rd December 1819 at a cost price of 4,926 francs and a sale price of 7000 francs.
3. The exhibition at the Musée Royal, Paris, January 1820.
4. Two books have been published recently about the house and the history of the Lygon family, Jane Mulvagh, Madresfield, The Real Brideshead, 2008, and Paula Byrne, Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead, 2009.
5. One of the vases can be seen in the house, in the background of a photograph of Else, Countess Beauchamp in her Coronation robes. See Sotheby's London, Jewellery, 9th December 1991.
