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拍品专文
Chestnut baskets are first recorded in the Sèvres archives in 1757 under the names 'marronnières unies' and 'marronnières a compartimens' (Arch. MNS, I7, 1758, f°6), and by the following year several variants of the form are recorded in production. They appear as part of services, were sold individually, in pairs or occasionally in sets of four. Popular on the grandest tables in France, they were ordered by Louis XV, Louis XVI, Mme. Victoire and her sisters and Mme. de Pompadour amongst others. Indeed, the December 1759 sales ledgers (Vy 3 fol. 7) record a sale to the King of ‘ventes au comptant faite a Versailles/au Roy/1 maronniere fleurs et plateau 144 (livres)’.
Designed to serve marrons glacés at dessert, the baskets were of an openwork or pierced pattern, allowing air to circulate around the contents and permitting the excess sugar to drain, preserving the chestnuts' texture. The Encyclopédie by Diderot and d'Alembert (Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers, 1772, p. 240) gives a contemporary account of their use in the 18th century:
'On sert dans les meilleurs tables, au dessert, les marrons rôtis sous la cendre; on les pele ensuite, & on les enduit de Suc d'orange, ou de limon avec un peu de sucre'
The pair to the present chestnut basket is likely the example of the same shape formerly in the J. Pierpont Morgan collection and now in the Milwaukee Art Museum. Painted by Denis Levé, the Milwaukee example is marked with the same date letter and possesses the same distinctive green-ground to its underside as the present Rothschild example. (See Xavier de Chavagnac, Catalogue des porcelaines françaises de M. J. Pierpont Morgan, 1910, no. 91, p. 77, pl. XXVII and Rosalind Savill, Everyday Rococo, Madame de Pompadour & Sèvres Porcelain, Norwich, 2021, vol. II, pp. 716, fig. 15.57.) Only three examples of this form, likely the 'marronnière contournée' form introduced in 1758, are known: the present example, the Milwaukee example and the other example in this Rothschild auction series.
Apart from two chestnut baskets with 'bleu lapis' ground sold in 1758 to Mr de Fontpertuis and two chestnut baskets on fixed stands sold the following year, according to the Sèvres records, the only marronnières sold as a pair during this time were the two included in the service offered by Louis XV to the Empress of Austria Maria-Theresa in December 1758, presumably the example offered here and the Milwaukee example. (A compotier carré from the Maria-Theresa service is also in the present Rothschild auction.) This pair was sold by the factory for 360 livres each, the highest recorded price of a chestnut basket. Only two other chestnut baskets were sold at this considerable price, a pink-ground 'marronnière' delivered to Madame Duvaux in December 1758 and a green-ground 'marronnière' delivered to the merchant Poirier at the beginning of 1760, likely the other chestnut basket offered in this Rothschild auction.
Described as decorated 'à rubans verts', the Maria-Theresa service was given by King Louis XV of France to the Empress of Austria in 1758. The entire service was made at a cost of 24,768 livres and the majority of the service is still in the Imperial Hofburg Palace, Vienna. For a full discussion of this service, see D. Peters, Sèvres Plates and Services of the 18th Century, Little Berkhamsted, 2005, vol. II, pp. 307-308. Other examples outside of the Hofburg Palace can be found at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Copenhagen (S. Eriksen and G. de Bellaigue, Sèvres Porcelain, London, 1987, p. 308, ill. 121); at the Royal Palace, Stockholm; at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; and at the Louvre and Decorative Arts Museums, Paris. Though certainly the service is distinguished by its intertwined green ribbons and most pieces are listed with the description of ‘rubans verds’ by use of the word idem [ditto] in the Sèvres sales register (Arch. Sèvres, Vy2, f° 83), the last object on the list, a punch bowl (current location unknown), is pointedly described as 'verd oiseaux' [green birds], suggesting that it is decorated with a green ground and not with green ribbons. No chestnut baskets decorated with two intertwined green ribbons are known today (except for chestnut basket with a single green ribbon, undated, sold by Sotheby's, London, 29 June 2004, lot 88).
A final possibility is that the chestnut baskets in the Maria-Theresa service were perhaps maronnières à ozier in shape, incorporating a white zig-zag and green ribbons, but the oldest dated example of this ozier form is 1760. In addition, other examples of the ozier form, including the four green-ribbon at Quirinale Palace in Rome, were seemingly priced at only 192 livres, far less than 360 livres noted for the Maria-Theresa pair.
There are, evidently, two conclusions: either the chestnut baskets from Maria-Theresa's service were decorated with the standard entwined green ribbons and their present whereabouts have yet to be discovered; or, assuming the sales records of the Sèvres factory are somewhat imperfect, the present chestnut basket and its counterpart in the Milwaukee Art Museum, both dating to 1758 and with flamboyant chestnut finials and green undersides, could indeed be the very ones given by Louis XV to the Empress of Austria.
Designed to serve marrons glacés at dessert, the baskets were of an openwork or pierced pattern, allowing air to circulate around the contents and permitting the excess sugar to drain, preserving the chestnuts' texture. The Encyclopédie by Diderot and d'Alembert (Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers, 1772, p. 240) gives a contemporary account of their use in the 18th century:
'On sert dans les meilleurs tables, au dessert, les marrons rôtis sous la cendre; on les pele ensuite, & on les enduit de Suc d'orange, ou de limon avec un peu de sucre'
The pair to the present chestnut basket is likely the example of the same shape formerly in the J. Pierpont Morgan collection and now in the Milwaukee Art Museum. Painted by Denis Levé, the Milwaukee example is marked with the same date letter and possesses the same distinctive green-ground to its underside as the present Rothschild example. (See Xavier de Chavagnac, Catalogue des porcelaines françaises de M. J. Pierpont Morgan, 1910, no. 91, p. 77, pl. XXVII and Rosalind Savill, Everyday Rococo, Madame de Pompadour & Sèvres Porcelain, Norwich, 2021, vol. II, pp. 716, fig. 15.57.) Only three examples of this form, likely the 'marronnière contournée' form introduced in 1758, are known: the present example, the Milwaukee example and the other example in this Rothschild auction series.
Apart from two chestnut baskets with 'bleu lapis' ground sold in 1758 to Mr de Fontpertuis and two chestnut baskets on fixed stands sold the following year, according to the Sèvres records, the only marronnières sold as a pair during this time were the two included in the service offered by Louis XV to the Empress of Austria Maria-Theresa in December 1758, presumably the example offered here and the Milwaukee example. (A compotier carré from the Maria-Theresa service is also in the present Rothschild auction.) This pair was sold by the factory for 360 livres each, the highest recorded price of a chestnut basket. Only two other chestnut baskets were sold at this considerable price, a pink-ground 'marronnière' delivered to Madame Duvaux in December 1758 and a green-ground 'marronnière' delivered to the merchant Poirier at the beginning of 1760, likely the other chestnut basket offered in this Rothschild auction.
Described as decorated 'à rubans verts', the Maria-Theresa service was given by King Louis XV of France to the Empress of Austria in 1758. The entire service was made at a cost of 24,768 livres and the majority of the service is still in the Imperial Hofburg Palace, Vienna. For a full discussion of this service, see D. Peters, Sèvres Plates and Services of the 18th Century, Little Berkhamsted, 2005, vol. II, pp. 307-308. Other examples outside of the Hofburg Palace can be found at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Copenhagen (S. Eriksen and G. de Bellaigue, Sèvres Porcelain, London, 1987, p. 308, ill. 121); at the Royal Palace, Stockholm; at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; and at the Louvre and Decorative Arts Museums, Paris. Though certainly the service is distinguished by its intertwined green ribbons and most pieces are listed with the description of ‘rubans verds’ by use of the word idem [ditto] in the Sèvres sales register (Arch. Sèvres, Vy2, f° 83), the last object on the list, a punch bowl (current location unknown), is pointedly described as 'verd oiseaux' [green birds], suggesting that it is decorated with a green ground and not with green ribbons. No chestnut baskets decorated with two intertwined green ribbons are known today (except for chestnut basket with a single green ribbon, undated, sold by Sotheby's, London, 29 June 2004, lot 88).
A final possibility is that the chestnut baskets in the Maria-Theresa service were perhaps maronnières à ozier in shape, incorporating a white zig-zag and green ribbons, but the oldest dated example of this ozier form is 1760. In addition, other examples of the ozier form, including the four green-ribbon at Quirinale Palace in Rome, were seemingly priced at only 192 livres, far less than 360 livres noted for the Maria-Theresa pair.
There are, evidently, two conclusions: either the chestnut baskets from Maria-Theresa's service were decorated with the standard entwined green ribbons and their present whereabouts have yet to be discovered; or, assuming the sales records of the Sèvres factory are somewhat imperfect, the present chestnut basket and its counterpart in the Milwaukee Art Museum, both dating to 1758 and with flamboyant chestnut finials and green undersides, could indeed be the very ones given by Louis XV to the Empress of Austria.