Tournai - Lot 170

Lot 170
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Estimation :
8000 - 12000 EUR
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Result : 10 000EUR
Tournai - Lot 170
Tournai Cup litron and its saucer in soft porcelain with polychrome decoration of birds after the Natural History of birds of the Count of Buffon and butterflies in reserves on blue bottom with gold lattice. The birds named in black on the reverse. On the cup: Moustache woman, on the saucer: jackdaw of the new guinea. 18th century, circa 1787. H. 5.8 cm, D. 11.8 cm. The service called "aux oiseaux de Buffon" was ordered by the Duke of Orleans to the Tournai factory in July 1787 and destined for the Palais Royal in Paris. The general invoice of the service detailing the whole delivery is published by Claire Dumortier, Patrick Habets, Porcelaine de Tournai, le service d'Orléans, 2004, p.162. The service of the duke of Orleans included the considerable number of 1.593 pieces. In comparison, the Sèvres service with the largest number of pieces is the one delivered to Catherine II of Russia and was composed of 706 items. The mythological service for Louis XVI had 493 pieces. The only more important service in European porcelain is the swan service of the Count of Brühl made in Meissen between 1737 and 1741 (2,200 pieces). The birds are taken from L'Histoire naturelle des Oiseaux, published by the Count of Buffon in ten volumes between 1770 and 1786. A large part of the Duke of Orleans' service (594 pieces) was purchased in 1803 and 1806 by the Prince of Wales through the intermediary of the merchant Robert Fogg. Today 565 porcelains from the service are still in the English royal collection at Windsor Castle; the 29 missing pieces were probably donated by the crown (Geoffrey de Bellaigue, Sèvres, Porcelain from the Royal Collection, exhibition catalog, London, 1979, pp. 25-27).
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