Please notice that you will have to register... - Lot 57 - Drouot Estimations

Lot 57
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Result : 245 000EUR
Please notice that you will have to register... - Lot 57 - Drouot Estimations
Please notice that you will have to register before the sale and let a deposit if you want to bid on the lot 57. Please send an email at bids@drouot.com   No Drouot Live bids for the lot 57. RARE DESSERT PLATE OF THE SPECIAL SERVICE OF EMPEROR NAPOLEON I. Napoleon Museum - View of the Salon de la Victoire. Hard porcelain plate, the rim decorated with a frieze of swords linked by a garland of laurel leaves and enriched with stars on a chrome green background, the center decorated with a polychrome interior view depicting the visit of Empress Josephine to the Victory Room at the Napoleon Museum (now the Apollo Rotunda at the Louvre), in a reserve bordered with a wide gold fillet and enhanced with gilding in relief. Manufacture impériale de Sèvres, 1808. Painted by Jean-Claude RUMEAU (1777-1839), painter for "travaux extraordinaires" at the Manufacture de Sèvres from 1808 to 1824, in July 1808. Back incised and painted in black of the figure "LL" interlaced of King Louis XVIII and the inventory number "N°66". Visible traces of the former legend of the plate "Musée Napoléon / Vue du Salon de la Victoire". Very good state of preservation, with minor firing defects and wear to the paint. Diameter: 23.5 cm. Estimate on request Provenance: -Delivered on behalf of the Emperor Napoleon to the Palais des Tuileries on March 27, 1810. -Sale Yves de Cagny, Hôtel Drouot, June 13, 1973 (reproduced on the cover), sold for 74,270 francs (sold separately alongside a second plate from the same service, with a view of the Prytanée de Saint-Cyr, painted by Lebel in 1808, now kept at the Fondation Napoléon). -Private collection, France. HISTORY OF THE SERVICE At a considerable total cost of 65,449 francs, the private service of Emperor Napoleon I was composed of an appetizer service, a dessert service, a cookie dinner service and a coffee tray. Our plate is part of the 72 dessert plates known as "des Quartiers généraux", with a unit cost of 425 francs, which is a record for the time. Napoleon's instructions, taken up by Daru, grand marshal of the Palace, for this service "of a very particular kind", were "that among these drawings, there should be no battles or names of men, but that on the contrary, the subjects should offer only very indirect allusions that awaken pleasant memories", as if to offer a little levity in a meal ceremonial so codified by etiquette. The service was delivered to the Tuileries on March 27, 1810, just in time to appear on the table for the wedding of Napoleon and Marie-Louise on April 2. Our plate is number 34 on the preliminary list and number 45 on the final delivery. At the time of the first Restoration in 1814, Louis XVIII took possession of the service left at the Tuileries and removed all the marks of the Imperial Manufacture of Sèvres, affixing instead his monogram with the double L, and having each plate numbered. After the Hundred Days, the Emperor was allowed to take 60 of the 72 dessert plates to St. Helena, including the one shown here, in five specially made morocco cases, showing his real attachment to this very special service. Four were given by Napoleon in exile to members of his close circle. Our plate numbered 66 (from a list which unfortunately has not been preserved) is one of the few mentioned by the memorialists, and was one of those that the Emperor liked to show to his visitors. The inventory drawn up at the Emperor's death mentions "54 plates of Sevres porcelain for dessert", and his will stipulates: "my Sevres porcelain which I used on St. Helena [...] I charge the Count of Montholon to keep these objects and to give them to my son when he is sixteen years old...". We know the difficulties that Montholon will have to transmit these objects to the son of Napoleon and Marie-Louise. After Austria refused to grant the wishes of the deceased, Montholon kept the plates and gave some of them to his son Las Cases. Thus began their dispersion. A few rare plates are still in private hands today, but less and less as the plates appear on the market. HISTORY OF THE PLATE The subject of our plate is the result of the Emperor's desire to see him receive a "pleasant souvenir" of his campaigns, even though, rarely in the service, the view illustrates a French subject, one of the three depicting the Louvre. This one was painted by Jean-Claude Rumeau, a specialist in interior views, at Brongniart's exceptional request, along with a second plate from the Service particulier depicting the Salle de Diane, with the "new antique statues."
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