Although a few Vincennes porcelain figures exist which are glazed, the royal factory adopted at an early date the practice of producing unglazed, biscuit figures which, because of the purity of their material, resemble marble figurines. The fashion for biscuit figures first introduced at Vincennes quickly spread through Europe.

Vincennes Porcelain Factory

The French National Manufacture of soft-paste porcelain was established at Vincennes in 1738 before it moved in 1756.

François Boucher

French Rococo artist who epitomizes the frivolous and elegant court life of France in the mid-18th century. During his early career he was closely associated with Watteau, many of whose paintings he engraved. Boucher was a successful and incredibly prolific artistic who had a major impact on both fine and decorative art of the 18th century. He is particularly noted for having reinvented the genre of the pastoral, creating images of shepherds and shepherdesses as sentimental lovers that was taken up in a variety of medium. Boucher's sketchy manner of painting helped to promote painterliness as an end in itself. This trend dominated French painting until the emergence of Neoclassicism, when the tides of criticism turned against Boucher and his followers.

Provenance

R. Henry Norweb, Cleveland, Ohio.

Citations

Chavagnac, Xavier Roger Marie, and Gaston Antoine Grollier. Histoire des manufactures françaises de porcelaine. Paris: A. Picard et fils, 1906. p. 268

Guérinet, Armand, ed. Les Biscuits de la manufacture nationale de Sevres, XVIIIe siecle & XIXe siecle. Paris: A. Guerinet, 1910. pl. 43, 35

Bourgeois, Émile, and Georges Lechevallier-Chevignard. Le biscuit de Sèvres: recueil des modèles de la manufacture de Sèvres au XVIIIe siècle. Paris: P. Lafitte, 1913. no. 173, pl. 4

Les oeuvres de la Manufacture nationale de Sèvres. Vol. 1, La Sculpture de 1738 à 1815. Sèvres: Manufacture nationale, 1932. p. 3, no. 192

Zick, Gisela. "D'Après Boucher. Die Vallée de Montmorency und die europäische Porzellanplastik." Keramos 29 (July 1965). p. 5, fig. 1a, b

Dauterman, Carl Christian. The Wrightsman Collection. Vol 4, Porcelain. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1966. p. 283, no. 115

Préaud, Tamara. Porcelaines de Vincennes: les origines de Sèvres. Paris: Éditions des Musées nationaux, 1977. p. 159, 171

Brunet, Marcelle, and Tamara Préaud. Sèvres: des origines à nos jours. Fribourg: Office du livre, 1978. p. 227, no. 306

Guillemé-Brulon, Dorothée. "Le Premier surtout de table en Biscuit de Sèvres." L'Estampille 173 (September 1984). p. 42-45

Kingery, W. D., and Pamela B. Vandiver. "A Boucher Soft-Paste Unglazed Bisque Sculpture - La Danseuse." Ceramic Masterpieces: Art, Structure, and Technology. New York: Free Press, 1986. p. 179-194

Préaud, Tamara, and Antoine d' Albis. La porcelaine de Vincennes. Paris: A. Biro, 1991. p. 174, no. 178

Versailles et les tables royales en Europe: XVIIème-XIXème siècles. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1993. p. 285-86

Salmon, Xavier. Madame de Pompadour et les arts. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2002. p. 485-87

Exhibition history

Year in Review (1961). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 1-26, 1961).