1 / 4

download image
This image is in the public domain. You can copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes. Learn more about our image policies.

French 16th Century, probably Saint-Porchaire (Deux-Sevres), or Paris region

Cup on high foot with the royal arms of France crowned, c. 1540/1560

West Building, Main Floor - Gallery 25

Medium

lead-glazed fine earthenware

Dimensions

overall (height by length of bowl excluding masks): 13.6 × 15.4 cm (5 3/8 × 6 1/16 in.)

Credit Line

Widener Collection

Accession Number

1942.9.351

Artists / Makers

French 16th Century (ceramist)

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Provenance

Frédéric Engel-Gros, Château de Ripaille, Haute Savoie, France, by 1888 (sale, Paris, 30 May - 1 June 1921, no. 122);[1] (Durlacher, London); purchased 1922 by Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from the Estate of Peter A. B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, after purchase by funds of the Estate, 1942.[2]

[1] Edmond Bonnaffé, "Les faïences de Saint-Porchaire," Gazette des beaux-arts 2d ser., 37 (1888), 327, "une coupe d'une forme originale à M. Engel-Gros de Baie," presumably refers to this piece. Catalogue des tableaux anciens, tableaux modernes, objets d'art et de haute curiosité, importantes tapisseries composant la collection Engel-Gros, Paris, 30 May-1 June 1921, no. 122 repro.

[2] NGA provenance records state that this piece was in the "Lowengard collection. Sold Paris, 10 June 1910;" and from the "Achille Leclerq collection." However, what sounds like the same piece was already mentioned by Bonnaffé in 1888 as in the collection of Engel-Gros. Neither the sale in Paris on 30 May 1904, following the death of Achille Leclerq, "antiquaire," nor the Catalogue des tapisseries de Flandres... après décès de M. Lowengard, sold on 10 June 1910, included any Saint-Porchaire.

Associated Names

Durlacher Brothers
Engel-Gros, Frédéric
Widener, Joseph E.

Exhibition History

1994: Fanciful Flourishes: Ornament in European Graphic Art and Related Objects, 1300-1800, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994, brochure, no. 44, as Cup with the Arms of France, Arabesques, and Other Ornament.

Technical Summary

The white body is inlaid with decoration in a clay that shows through the decoration as dark brown verging on black. The cup is entirely covered in a somewhat crackled transparent glaze, which has a greenish yellow cast where it has pooled beneath the foot. The design is heightened on the applied ornament with green, yellow brown, purple brown, and blue black, and on the ropework ornament around the rim in pale brown. Some cracking of the body beneath the foot has taken place in firing. There is a break, repaired with some areas of fill, around the "gothic" arcade and buttresses supporting the bowl. The bowl has been broken and repaired, mainly beneath the shield of arms and hardly affecting the design, with small patches of fill; a piece has been broken off and filled at the edge. The masks on the bowl are chipped. A loose fragment rattles inside the knop.

Bibliography

1888: Bonnaffé, Edmond. "Les faïences de Saint-Porchaire." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 2d ser. 37 (1888): 327 ("une coupe d'une forme originale à M. Engel-Gros de Bâle," presumably this piece).

1891: Bonnaffé, Edmond. "Faïences de Saint-Porchaire dites de Henri II." In La collection Spitzer: Antiquité, moyen âge, renaissance. 6 vols. Paris, 1890-1892: 130.

1921: Dacier, Emile. "Les collections du Château de Ripaille, II; les sculptures et les objets d'art." Revue de l'art ancien et moderne 39 (1921): 314, repro. 319.

1921: "Les grande ventes." L'art et les artistes. n.s., no. 17 (May 1921): 335.

1925: Ganz, Paul. L'oeuvre d'un amateur d'art: La collection de Monsieur F. Engel Gros. Catalogue raisonné. Geneva and Paris, 1925: 421-423, 452; no. 101, pl. 148.

1935: Inventory of the Objects d'Art at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, The Estate of the Late P.A.B. Widener. Philadelphia, 1935: 69, as c. 1560.

1942: Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 14, as Henri II Ware, Coupe with the arms of France.

1975: Jestaz 1975, 396, n. 36.

1983: Wilson, Carolyn C. Renaissance Small Bronze Sculpture and Associated Decorative Arts at the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1983: 204, no. 32, as c. 1555.

1987: Schnitzer, Barbara K. "The Sixteenth-Century French Ceramic Ware Called Saint-Porchaire." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1987: 203, no. 49, pl. 29.

1993: Distelberger, Rudolf, Alison Luchs, Philippe Verdier, and Timonthy H. Wilson. Western Decorative Arts, Part I: Medieval, Renaissance, and Historicizing Styles including Metalwork, Enamels, and Ceramics. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1993: 254-256, color repro. 254.

1996: Barbour, Daphne, and Shelley Sturman. "Introduction." Studies in the History of Art 52 (1996): 12, repro. no. 1.

1996: Sturman, Shelley, and Daphne Barbour. "'Saint-Porchaire' Ceramic Bodies." Studies in the History of Art 52 (1996): 84, 86, 87, repro. no. 9.