Flower Pot and Stand (Vase hollandois)

This vase, called a “vase hollandois” or Dutch vase in Sèvres factory records, sports a deep blue (bleu lapis) ground which has been overlaid with intricate gilded decoration. The blue ground and gilding frame painted panels, four each on both the flower pot and stand. Those on the stand feature birds perched on branches or within miniature landscapes and are likely the work of Louis-Denis Armand, the Sèvres factory’s foremost painter of birds during this period. The front panel of the flower pot is devoted to a genre scene, possibly after the Dutch 17th-century painter Philips Wouwerman, depicting two men interacting with a white horse set against an exterior landscape with stonework walls and buildings in the background. Several painters at Sèvres during this period who specialized in figures have been suggested as the author of this scene including Antoine Caton, Charles-Nicolas Dodin, Jean-Baptiste-Étienne Genest, and André-Vincent Vielliard. The other three panels of the flower pot feature richly-painted bunches of flowers which are likely the work of Pierre-Louis-Philippe Armand.

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Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.

Collection of Baron Maurice Edmond Karl de Rothschild (1881–1957) [date and mode of acquisition unknown] [1]. Collection of Edwin Marriott Hodgkins (1860–1932), Paris, by 1927 [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; with A. Seligmann, Rey and Co., New York, by 1928 [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; purchased by Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1928; by bequest to the Walters Art Museum, 1931.

[1]. Provenance not confirmed, as given by Edwin Marriott Hodgkins: Catalogue of an Important Collection of Old Sèvres Porcelain, Louis XV and Louis XVI Period, Belonging to E.M. Hodgkins, Paris ([Paris?]: Edwin Marriott Hodgkins, 1927), number 23: “A Jardiniere. Sèvres Porcelain. Pâte tendre. Shape known as ‘Jardinière à éventail’.... Formerly in the collection of Baron Maurice de Rothschild.”