Sèvres pitcher (part of a service)
date: label: date made
content: 1805
notes: label: Description
content: The pitcher comes from a service that Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) gave to his sister Pauline (1780-1825) when she established a home in Paris at the hôtel de Charost. The light lilac ground was a fashionable color in post-revolutionary France, a time when interior designers experimented with new and unusual colors and color combinations, and one of the boudoirs in the hôtel de Charost was painted in a similar color. The figure subject is painted in brown and highlighted in gold on a ground painted to imitate marble. Under the spout the subject is a centaur rearing on his hind legs with a shield in his left hand and an arrow in his right. Two portrait medallions in profile on a white marble ground are framed by a circle of gold stars, purple beads and foliate ornament.
label: Description
content: The pitcher's pale lilac ground has dark purple ornament painted in overglaze enamel. A Greek key pattern is painted below the shoulder of the vessel, and at the base of the pitcher there is a foliate frieze above a band of gold. A delicate leaf pattern circles the neck of the pitcher. The handle is heavily gilded and the interior is white with no decoration apart from a band of gold on the rim.
label: Description
content: See Liana Paredes, 2009, exhibition catalog “Sèvres Then and Now: Tradition and Innovation in Porcelain, 1750-2000”, p.73, p.148.
label: Description
content: This pitcher belongs to the Alfred Duane Pell collection in the National Museum of American History. Before Pell (1864-1924) became an Episcopalian clergyman quite late in life, he and his wife Cornelia Livingstone Crosby Pell (1861-1938) travelled widely, and as they travelled they collected European porcelains, silver, and furniture. Pell came from a wealthy family and he purchased the large William Pickhardt Mansion on 5th Avenue and East 74th Street in which to display his vast collection. The Smithsonian was one of several institutions to receive substantial bequests from the Reverend Pell which laid the foundation for their collections of European applied arts.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: France: Île-de-France, Sevres
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
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content: Industry & Manufacturing
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content: Art
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content: Domestic Furnishings
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CE.P-778E
label: catalog number
content: P-778E
label: accession number
content: 225282
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Pitcher
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: red (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome (overall surface decoration color name)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8 7/8 in x 5 9/16 in x 4 1/16 in; 22.5425 cm x 14.12875 cm x 10.31875 cm