STUDY OF THE FORM: ‘Vase à pied globe’ or ‘Vase chinois’ 

The “vase à pied de globe” was designed by Jean-Claude Duplessis around 1768. Its name refers to the lower section that is in the form of a globe stand. The term appears in the Sèvres documents once in 1769, the same year in which the first examples of vases made in this form are known (although the shape may have been introduced the previous year). The model was made in three sizes, this pair being of the smallest size, which also seems to be the most common. A simplified version of the shape was 

introduced in about 1774. A plaster model survives at the Sèvres manufactory with a similar silhouette but without the globe stand base and with Chinese heads at the sides. This plaster model is catalogued in an inventory of 1814 with the title vase chinois, however no surviving examples are known of this model with the Chinese heads. The title “vase chinois” also appears in the eighteenth-century documents; it is unclear, however, to which shape this term applies. The “vase à pied de globe” model may have been referred to by both terms in the eighteenth century and the shape was frequently described as a vase chinois from the nineteenth century. Savill records 6 other pairs of the same size, quatrième grandeur : one pair is held at Wadsworth Atheneum (painted with a blue ground and pastoral scenes), one pair is held at the Art Institute of Chicago (painted with a blue ground and pastoral scenes), 

one is in the Huntington collection (painted with a turquoise blue ground and marine scenes), one pair at Boughton House (painted with a turquoise blue ground and pastoral scenes), one pair at the Wallace Collection, and one pair in the Bearsted collection, at Hupton House.

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Although the figures of children are very much in the style of François Boucher, no source has been identified yet. Roth explains “It is clear that Genest, who was a canvas painter before coming to Sèvres, had no need of Boucher models and created his figures independently. Similar cherubs painted with martial attributes are found on a number of other vases of around the same date. See, for example, the front reserves painted on a “vase à glands” (cat. 92) and a “vase à laurier” (cat. 93) now The Huntington, San Marino. We find comparable scenes on vases in other collections including: a pair of “vases à boulons” at the Wallace Collection, London, and on a pair of “vases urne antique à ornaments” at the 

Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford. Noting specific similarities in the painted technique on the figural scenes on a group of vases including those mentioned above, Roth attributes the figurative paintings to 

Jean-Baptiste-Etienne Genest (active 1752-1789), the head of the painter's workshop and one of the most talented painters at the manufactory. Roth bases her theory on stylistic links between the Hartord vases and two plaques – both painted by the same hand- one being held at Rosenborg Castle, Copenhaguen (n°. 23 1302). Although the plaque, offered to Christian VII king of Denmark in 1768, is not signed, we know that the figural scene depicting a military canteen was painted by Genest. Genest worked at the factory from 1752 until his death in 1789. He did not mark his pieces, because as head of the painter’s workshop he did not have to account for his production in this manner. He was also responsible for providing models for the other Sèvres painters to copy, and his own paintings were in the possession of the factory.