Estimate

400 - 600

Session 1

6 June 2023

Hammer Price

Description

French porcelain
Shell shaped of reliefs and part gilt decoration
French Empire, ca. 1810
Marked to base "Manufacture de sa majesté l'impératrice, P.L. Dagoty à Paris"

14,5x14 cm

Category

Porcelain

A TEA SET BY PIERRE-LOUIS DAGOTY

Pierre-Louis Dagoty (1771-1840) was born in Paris on July 2nd, 1771, at the heart of a family of painters and sculptors. His father, Jean-Baptiste André Gauthier Dagoty (1740-1786), was a court painter for Kings Louis XV (1710-1774) and Louis XVI (1754-1793), and it was him who was commissioned, in 1775, to paint the first official portrait of the Austrian Archduchess Marie Antoinette (1755-1793) as Queen of France, now displayed at the Château de Versailles (inv.MV8061).
Orphaned in 1785, the 14-year-old Pierre-Louis, together with his brother Étienne (ca. 1772-1800), entered an apprenticeship at Dihl & Gerhard’s porcelain manufactory, through which they developed a robust knowledge of producing and decorating porcelain. In 1800, the brothers signed a nine-year contract for the purpose of reforming the production of a decaying firm located at 4 Rue de Chevreuse, in Paris. Curiously, on January 1st, 1800, the Dagoty published the following advertisement in the Courrier des Spectacles newspaper:
“Les frères Dagoty, fabricants de Porcelaines, préviennent le public qu'ils ont repris totalement la fabrication de la porcelaines; ils se fluttent que l'on trouvera un nouveau, comme artistes et fils d’artistes distingues, ils chercheront à donner à cette branche de commerce tout le goût et l'élégance dont ele est susceptible.
Un avantafe que les citoyens négocians trouveront, c’est que ne vendant à aucuns détailans, ils évirtent par ce moyean de voir répéter dans les magasins les formes et les dessins qui peuvent plaire, ce qui leur paroit essential dans cette partie.
Leur manufacture est rue de Chevreuse boulevard Mont-Parnasse.
Leur magasin est rue du Faubourg Poissonnière, N. 2.”
Sadly, Étienne died later that same year, soon followed by their youngest brother Isidore, leaving the production entirely in Pierre-Louis hands. As such, it was him who steered the firm to its well-deserved place amongst the eighteen most important early-19th century Paris porcelain producers (Régine Plinval de Guillebon - Dagoty à Paris: La manufacture de porcelaine de l'Impératrice Joséphine, 2006, p.26). Significantly, four years into his leadership the firm employed over one hundred workers and counted five plants and four stores (Plinval de Guillebon, 1985, p.85).
The Dagoty brand would significantly benefit from the patronage of Empress Josephine de Beauharnais (1763-1814), Napoleon’s wife, being granted the title of “Manufacture de S.M. l'Impératrice, P.L. Dagoty à Paris” in December 1804. Upon the fall of the French Empire in 1814, it once again changed its name, becoming the Manufacture of Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Angoulême. P.L. Dagoty.
Highly successful, in 1806 alone Dagoty sold over 350 thousand porcelain bottles. Its creations were supplied to most European courts and to the highest ranks of the aristocracy, such as Great Duchess Elisa Baciocchi, who acquired a dessert set for her Villa di Marlia, in Lucca, now part of the exceptional collections of Florence’s Pitti Palace.
In 1816 Pierre-Louis Dagoty established a partnership with two other porcelain manufacturers, François Maurice Honoré and Edouard Honoré, the former’s firm based at Rue de Chevreuse since the previous century. This alliance would prove determinant for the luxurious production that ensued.
The various pieces that we are presenting for sale at auction are superb examples of Dagoty’s elegant production, diverse in its shapes and characterised by decorative motifs of highly unusual, gilded surfaces (de Plinval de Guillebon 1985, 84). Upon the dissolution of the partnership in 1820, Pierre-Louis Dagoty maintained his Paris porcelain production, which, on his retirement, would be sold to Dominique Denuelle.
At its peak, Dagoty porcelain was renowned by a characteristic that set it apart from its contemporary productions, as Pierre-Louis had adopted a technique consisting in lining the pieces inner surfaces, namely cups, with a thick layer of gold, that contrasted with the sophisticated dark colours, Empire green and various shades of gold, of their exterior. This technique, mastered by Dihl & Gerhard, made porcelain wares highly attractive to European courtly patrons, and equally desirable to wealthy American clients. It is known that King George IV (1762-1830) of the United Kingdom, acquired a tea and coffee set in 1810, followed in 1816 by the American President James Monroe (1758-1831), who commissioned a 30-piece dining set from Dagoty & Honoré.
Nowadays, in addition to the Royal Collection Trust and to the White House, Dagoty porcelain is present in various museum collections, such as the Sèvres National Céramique Museum, the Museum delle Porcellane in Florence, the Malmaison Château Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. It is however at the Lambert Castle Museum, in New Jersey, that pieces identical to the lots on sale by Veritas, can be found.


THE EMPIRE STYLE
The desire to return to the decorative aesthetics of the ancient classical decorative grammar, became evident in the mid-18th century, during the reign of King Louis XV, as evidenced by the so called “goût à la Grecque”, which would eventually evolve in the following reign, under King Louis XVI. Reaching its peak with the Empire (1803-1821) this New Style was formalised by the designer and architect Charles Percier (1764-1838) and by his peer and contemporary, Pierre François Léonard Fontaine (1762-1853).
Inspired by Rome’s Imperial past, as well as by the Egyptian art revealed by Napoleon’s campaigns in Egypt, the Empire Style dominated the European decorative arts, particularly in furniture, jewellery, and costume design (Boulanger, 1960). Ever present, the Eagle was associated to the emperor, while the Swan was associated to Empress Josephine, whose fondness and interest for these birds is illustrated by the conspicuous presence of such decorative imagery in her private apartments at the Palaces of Malmaison and Fontainebleau. Eventually the Empress was also the first to succeed in breeding black swans in captivity.
In addition to our tea set, in which the cups, teapot, milk jug and sugar bowl were modelled as swans, the extant Dagoty catalogue at the Victoria and Albert Museum, features a range of other designs that portray swans, being perhaps a means of honouring the Empress, or a reminder to its clients of the firm’s Imperial connections.


THE DECORATING OF 19TH CENTURY EUROPEAN PORCELAIN
Alexandre Brongniart (1770-1847), artistic director of the Sèvres Manufactory, considered porcelain the best support for recording the most accomplished paintings ever produced. As such, in the late 18th and the early 19th centuries examples appear of paintings by the greatest masters, such as Rembrandt or Rubens, accurately and comprehensively copied from published engravings, onto porcelain. Illustrative of this trend are three tête-a-tête sets made for the Portuguese Crown by the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory, which are now belong to the National Palace of Ajuda and National Palace of Queluz collections. These sets, destined for serving hot chocolate, were decorated with copies of paintings by such artists as Orazio Gentileschi (1563–1639), Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) and Philip James Loutherbourg (1740-1812).
Nonetheless, porcelain decoration went well beyond the replicating of famous old masterpieces, encompassing highly detailed and accomplished paintings of birds, flowers, mythological scenes, and landscapes (Coutts, 2001). Towards the late-18th century, the taste for birds and flowers reflected the prevalent interest for scientific and precise depictions of nature, and the porcelain manufacturers focused on the production of realistic portraits of a selection of species, mainly eagles, swans, parrots, owls and even chickens. Simultaneously they would produce images of utopian birds wrapped in eccentric and imaginative plumage (Boléo, 2014).
In parallel, some sets represented mythological imagery, perceived as illustrative of their owner’s high culture and social status, and landscape views (Coutts, 2001). This latter group can be subdivided into imaginary compositions, in the Dutch of Italian styles, and accurate, real depictions, classed as “landscape portraits” and “vistas” (Coutts, 2001).

LITERATURE:
AY-HALLÉ, Antoinette; MUNDT Barbara – Nineteenth-Century European Porcelain. London: Trefoil Books, 1983
BAYARD, Emile – L ́art de reconnaitre la céramique. Paris: Ernest Grnd, 1924
BLONDEL, Nicole – Céramique, vocabulaire technique. Paris: Éditions du patrimoine 2014
BOULANGER, Gisèle – L ́art de reconnaitre les styles. Paris: Hachette, 1960
COUTTS, Hoeard – The Art of Ceramics, European Ceramic Design 1500–1830. New York: Yale University Press, 2001
DANCKERT, Ludwig, Directory of European Porcelain, London, N.A.G. Press, 2004
PlINVAL de Guillebon, Régine de - Dagoty à Paris, la manufacture de porcelaine de L'Impératrice. Paris: Somogy Editions d'Art, 2006. Exhibition at the Château de Malmaison of more than 300 Dagoty pieces (2006-2007)
PlINVAL de Guillebon, Régine de - La porcelaine à Paris sous le Consulat et l'Empire: fabrication, commerce, étude topographique des immeubles ayant abrité des manufactures de porcelaine. Geneva: Droz, 1985, pp. 82-85
RODRIGUES, Tiago – Um pequeno tesouro do Palácio Nacional da Ajuda: Um tête-à-tête para Chocolate que pertenceu ao Infante D. Afonso, Duque do Porto in AA.VV – Artes decorativas, Artis On, Nº1, ARTIS-Instituto de História da Arte da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, 2015, pp.129-141