CREIL-MONTEREAU Important part of a table... - Lot 243 - De Baecque et Associés

Lot 243
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Result : 28 000EUR
CREIL-MONTEREAU Important part of a table... - Lot 243 - De Baecque et Associés
CREIL-MONTEREAU Important part of a table service named Rousseau in fine earthenware from the manufacture of Lebeuf and Milliet, the model created in 1866 by Eugène Rousseau and Félix Bracquemond, with polychrome decoration in the japanese style of plants, herbs, insects, birds, fishes, molluscs and shellfishes, the contoured edges underlined by blue combed, consisting of 115 pieces: a large oval covered terrine with two handles in the form of branches and the lid in the shape of a fruit, a round covered vegetable dish with two branch-shaped handles and a fruit-shaped lid, Two large oval dishes, Two oval dishes, Four round hollow dishes, Three round hollow dishes, Five bowls on pedestal, three of them hollow, Six cake dishes on pedestal, Three covered oval sugar bowls on adjoining tray, Four oval dishes, Nine egg cups, Sixty-one dinner plates, Fourteen soup plates. Marked: CREIL LM&CIE MONTEREAU MODEL E.ROUSSEAU A PARIS. Late 19th century, circa 1880. Some accidents, condition report available on request. The French engraver and ceramist Félix Bracquemond (1833-1914) is a key figure in the artistic life of the second half of the 19th century. He was a close friend of Manet, Degas, Gauguin and Rodin, but also of Gautier and the Goncourt brothers. Above all an engraver, he was at the origin of the revival of the etching technique. He guided many artists in this direction, from Corot to Milliet, not forgetting Degas and Pissarro, within the Impressionist group of which he was an active member. His reputation also rests on his discovery and appreciation of Japanese prints, which were to contribute to the aesthetic renewal of modern art. In 1856, Bracquemond discovered a collection of engravings by the Japanese artist Hokusai, typical of the pictorial genre known in Japan as "Kachô-ga", paintings of flowers and birds with the figuration of insects, crustaceans and fish. He was seduced by this theme, which would make him the initiator of the vogue for Japonism in France at the end of the 19th century. Between 1860 and 1864, a collaboration with Théodore Deck allowed him to work on ceramics within the framework of decorative arts. The history of the Rousseau service begins on March 16, 1866, with the first letter that the patron, François-Eugène Rousseau, sent to Bracquemond. Rousseau (1827-1890) was a "merchant-publisher" in the 1860s, employing free labourers. He had a project for an earthenware service and his ideas for decorations, and asked Bracquemond for technical advice for its realization. Bracquemond takes the matter in hand and it is the plates engraved by Bracquemond himself which are brought to the manufacture of Montereau where the service must be carried out. The Japanese subjects are borrowed from various albums by Hokusai, Hiroshige, or Katsushika Isai and arranged randomly, following a ternary composition, a large subject accompanied by two smaller ones. This service was presented for the first time at the Universal Exhibition of 1867 where it was very successful. The jury awarded a bronze medal to Eugène Rousseau and a gold medal to the Lebeuf and Milliet factory. The service is then completed (tea cups, coffee cups, teapot, sugar pot) and the manufacture will be left to the manufacture of Creil and Montereau. Barluet, successor of Lebeuf reissued it at the beginning of the 1880s. In 1885, Eugène Rousseau gave up his business to Ernest-Baptiste Leveillé who continued to produce this service under his own brand. On the occasion of the presentation of the Rousseau service at the International Exhibition in London, Mallarmé published in 1871 a glowing commendation, which was renewed in 1872: "I had refused to make any allusion, necessarily too brief, to this admirable and unique service, decorated by Bracquemond with Japanese motifs borrowed from the farmyard and the fishing tank, the most beautiful recent tableware that I have ever seen. Each piece, the plates even, wants its special description () I should particularly mention, as a translation of the high Japanese charm made by a very French spirit, the table service asked, boldly, to the master aquafortist Bracquemond where strut, enhanced with joyful colors, the ordinary guests of the barnyard and the fishponds ". Bibliography: Catalogue général de l'Exposition Universelle de 1867 à Paris, Paris, 1867. J.P. Bouillon, C. Shimizu, P. Thiebaut, Art, industrie et japonisme : le service Rousseau, exhibition catalogue, Musée d'Orsay, 1988. L. d'Albis : " les débuts du japonisme céramique en France de Bracquemond à Chapelet ", Sèvres, n° 7, 1998, pp. 21-31. J.P. Bouillon, C. Meslin-Perrier, Félix Bracquemond et les arts décoratifs, du japonisme à l'art nouveau, exhibition catalogue, 2
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