A fine pair of 18th century Sèvres soft paste porcelain Ice Pails (Seau or jatte à glace). In three parts, the urn shaped bowl, which is fitted with angular handles terminating in gilded floral attachments, rests on three bun feet. It is accompanied by a pain liner and cover with a raised outer wall. The handle of the cover is formed by two upright confronted C-shaped acanthus fronds. Ice cream or sorbet would have been placed in the liner, and crushed ice and salt in the bowl and the well of the cover. Finely decorated with a turquoise blue ground (Bleu Céleste), very finely painted with polychrome flowers and fruit in enclosed frames, reserved within a loose floral trail of tooled & burnished gold.
The later added decoration attributed to the English workshop of Thomas Martin Randall at Madeley c.1830. This little factory specialised in the decoration and re-decoration of imported French wares, as well as the manufacture of porcelains in the same style. A portion of these imported pre revolutionary French wares bore the Sèvres mark and were sold as such. It is also reputed that blank porcelain was imported from Sevres, decorated at Madeley and then shipped back to France only to be sold back to wealthy English aristocrats who were wanting to impress their friends with their Sèvres porcelain!
Spurious Sevres marks to the base of each cooler.
Condition: Excellent with some wear to the gilding mainly around the rims of the ice pails where the liners sit on the rim. Rim chip to one liner. Three firing cracks to one liner which happened during manufacturing.
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Antique Number: SA1100251
Dateline of this antique is Georgian
Height is 20cm (7.9inches)
Width is 20cm (7.9inches)
Depth is 20cm (7.9inches)
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