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Table and silverware

The housewife under fifty much likes the similarly-named ménagère (canteen of cutlery). But table- and silverware auctions feature fine antique cutlery sets in silver or vermeil, containing table forks and knives, coffee and dessert spoons, sugar tongs and pie servers, meticulously presented in a fine box.traditional silverware with shell or filet patterns and remarkable pieces by silversmiths in the rocaille (odiot) or art deco styles (puiforcat, christofle, etc.) Feature in these online auctions, with dinner services in porcelain (sèvres, meissen, limoges) or earthenware (moustiers, gien, nevers), which include dinner, soup and dessert plates, tureens and sauce boats.
Not to mention "top-glass" sets of glasses and carafes in baccarat, saint-louis and daum crystal, which rival with ornamental pieces for presenting and serving sweet substances: ewers, sweet jars, sugar dredgers, jam pot, and the like.
Did you know ?
One ornamental piece that still exists today is the champagne bucket: an item that regularly appears in drouot auctions.

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Tabak dish with ship design, Turkey, probably Kütahya, 19th century Siliceous ceramic dish with polychrome painted decoration on white slip under a transparent glaze, of a three-masted ship sailing on the waves and surrounded by tchi clouds floating in the sky, the marli decorated with waves and rocks. On the reverse, four blue-tinted spiral elements. D. 33 cm Scratches, cracks, several chips in glaze and paste, trace of scratching (sampling?) on reverse. While the iconography of the ship multiplies in 17th-century Ottoman ceramics from Iznik, several elements rule out such an attribution for this dish. The deep blue of the two central sails and the hull, the lavender blue of the sea, but also the spinach green of the fanciful floral frieze on the hull or the leaves surrounding the sailboat, and finally the brown hue of the manganese oxide are all colors that deviate from the usual chromatic range. In addition, the swell animating the sea, as well as the contours of the waves and rocks adorning the marl, are painted with a certain clumsiness that is found on the marl of the ewer-decorated dish Inv. n°217 from the Kıraç Foundation Collection of Istanbul's Pera Museum, attributed to Kütahya at the end of the 19th century. This same attribution was used for a dish very similar to ours sold at Christie's, London, on March 19, 2020, lot 192, and is tempting to give to this object. From the 18th century onwards, the factories of the town of Kütahya in western Turkey, already active in the fine Ottoman period, definitively took over Iznik production as the Sultanian workshops declined. While the influence of Iznik pieces is undeniable on Kütahya ceramics, the ship remains a rare subject for the workshops of this second center. Expert: Camille CELIER

Estim. 600 - 800 EUR

SÈVRES - Pair of Boizot porcelain bowl trays, agate blue background, decorated on the border with a frieze of gold palmettes and in the center with a rosette with palmettes, edged with gold fillets. Small chips. Manufacture royale de Sèvres, 1838. Marks in blue with King Louis-Philippe's cipher dated 1838, marks in red "Château de St Cloud", gilder's marks Moyez. H. 4.5 x D. 23 cm. Provenance Service of King Louis-Philippe at the Château de Saint-Cloud. History Louis-Philippe's first order for one of his residences came relatively early: in April and June 1832, the Sèvres manufactory was asked to supply a 1036-piece service (including 300 dinner plates) for the Château de Saint-Cloud, despite the King's lack of interest in this residence. The choice of this palace is certainly explained by the fact that it had strangely lacked a service worthy of the royal table since Louis XVI's miniature, mozaic service. Indeed, Josephine took the brown-red service with flowers from Malmaison after Redouté (1805), Cardinal Fesch received the lapis-blue service with heads imitating the cameo initially intended for Saint-Cloud (1808) and Compiègne recovered the gold service with garlands of flowers initially intended for the Clodaldian residence (1809). This was the beginning of the interconnections between Compiègne and Saint-Cloud, as Louis-Philippe decided to deliver the same service with an agate-blue background, a frieze of palmettes printed in gold, and a rosette in the middle of the pieces likely to be used at Compiègne, as early as January 1833 (2218 pieces). Under the Restoration, the "capraire" service was used in both residences. This similar choice obliged the Maison du Roi, in a letter dated January 31, 1833, to ask the Manufacture to differentiate the destination of each piece by means of an "inscription underneath", which would in fact be a red stamp on the reverse, alongside the Manufacture's usual manufacturing and decorative marks. This decision, which was unique in the history of royal services in France, was applied to all of King Louis-Philippe's table services, with the exception of the Bals service and only the dessert services (ordered by the King as such, although all the royal table services were in fact starter and dessert services).

Estim. 400 - 600 EUR