SEVRES Rare dish from the service presented by King Louis XVI to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, Duke of Modena. Polylobed circular dish in soft-paste porcelain, the celestial-blue border decorated with three oblong cartouches alternately decorated with polychrome roses, cornflowers and daisies, linked by friezes of pearls and acanthus leaves in gold, the basin centered with a bouquet of roses on a purple background bordered by a frieze of pearls, frieze of gold lambrequins on the hollow and gold fillet on the rim. Minor restorations to the gold on the rim. Manufacture royale de Sèvres, 1785. Mark with interlaced LL and date-letter HH for 1785 in blue; mark of the flower painter Edme- François Bouillat père (active 1785-1810); gilder's mark Henri- Martin Prévost (active from 1757 to 1797). Diameter: 29 cm. Provenance : Service "fond bleu céleste, marguerites, barbeaux et roses", presented by King Louis XVI to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria (1754-1806), Duke of Modena, delivered by the Manufacture on June 12, 1786. It included 72 plates at 36 livres each. Is this perhaps one of the four rabe dishes or one of the sixteen compotiers described in the service? Peters, Sèvres Plates and Services of the 18th Century, 2005, IV, no. 86-4, for more details on the service and a list of pieces in public collections). Ferdinand Karl Anton Joseph Johann Stanislaus, Archduke of Austria, was the fourth son of Francis I and Maria Theresa, and thus Marie-Antoinette's elder brother. He and his wife, Archduchess Marie- Béatrice, stayed in Paris from May 11, 1786 to August 18, 1786, when they received the service.