Provenance:
Drouot, Paris, Anonymous sale, 23 October 1996, Lot 71
Dragesco-Cramoisan, Paris, June 1997 (purchased at the International Ceramics Fair, London)

Note:
Introduced at Sèvres circa 1779, jewelling was at the height of its popularity during the early years of the 1780s. It was an extremely laborious and, therefore, expensive process resulting in an exceptionally delicate finished product.

Making the ‘jewels’ involved the application of drops of enamel in imitation of precious stones—opaque white for pearls, translucent blue, red and green for sapphires, rubies and emeralds, ochre for topaz, purple for amethyst, etc.—onto gold foils stamped by steel dies and then engraved and tooled in shallow relief with star bursts and other patterns, these tooled patterns remaining visible through the translucent enamel, giving depth to the ‘cabochons’.

Applied in the eighteenth century to both hard- and soft-paste porcelain, jewelling was used at Sèvres in combination with a wide range of ground colors. In addition to the rich blue (beau bleu) of the present example, undoubtedly the most popular and successful ground color, examples are known on green, bleu céleste, lapis lazuli, black, merde d’oie (an olive green), boue de Paris (a taupe-beige), mauve, red, lilac, and maroon grounds, as well as on white, perhaps the least successful.

One other jewelled beau bleu cup and saucer of 1782 virtually identical in decoration to the present example is known. It has been in the British Royal Collection since 1907 and is currently on display at Windsor Castle in the Green Drawing Room (Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue, French Porcelain: In the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, London, Vol. II, cat. no. 216, pp. 828-830, inv. 58189a-b). The cup has the same capital L mark for Louis-François L’ Écot (active 1761-1764 and 1772-1800), one of the few decorators at the factory skilled in jewelling. Recorded as a gilder and painter, he also specialized in chinoiseries and arabesques. Its saucer, with a variant central medallion and a different date letter, has been identified by de Bellaigue as a later replacement.

Catalogue entry no. 216 references two other bleu nouveau examples known on the Paris art market in the mid-1990s. These are, in fact, one example—the present cup with its original saucer. A third cup and saucer with the same jewelling pattern but on a bleu céleste ground was in the collection of René Fribourg, sold The René Fribourg Collection – V: French Faience and European Porcelain, Part II, Sotheby’s, London, 15 October 1963, lot 434.