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Saucer

Saucer
Maker: Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory
Porcelain (soft paste), gilt
1778-1788
Saucer
Saucer
Maker: Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory
Porcelain (soft paste), gilt
1778-1788
Saucer Maker: Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory Porcelain (soft paste), gilt 1778-1788
Status
On view
Label Text

As president, George Washington desired tablewares that would strike a stylistic balance between appearing too regal and not being sufficiently dignified enough to impress foreign dignitaries. In March 1790, he purchased a 309-piece service from the departing French minister, the Comte de Moustier. Moustier had acquired most of these porcelains from the royal manufactory at Sèvres in 1778, then added pieces from the Angoulême and Nast factories over the next decade. All are minimally decorated with gilded rims. Such understated elegance matched Washington's preference for neat and plain, while offering his guests fashionable French porcelain with a possible subtle reference to ancient white marble statuary and republican ideals.

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Date1778-1788
Maker (French, 1756 - present)
Geography Made - France
DimensionsOverall (Diameter of rim): 1 1/8 in. x 5 3/16 in. x 5 3/16 in. (2.86 cm x 13.18 cm x 13.18 cm) Overall (Diameter of foot): 2 7/8 in. x 2 7/8 in. (7.3 cm x 7.3 cm)
Credit LineBequest of Ella Mackubin, 1956
Object numberW-1456/B
DescriptionCircular saucer with rounded sides on a raised circular foot. Rim is decorated with a gild dentate (dent-de-loup) border.
Published ReferencesCadou, Carol Borchert, The George Washington Collection" Fine and Decorative Arts at Mount Vernon (New York: Hudson Hill Press, 2006), 148, cat. 42.

Detweiler, Susan Gray, "The Ceramics," Antiques 135, no. 2 (February 1989): 498, 500.

Detweiler, Susan Gray, George Washington's Chinaware (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1982), pp. 119-34. See fn. 231, p. 193, for Moustier's purchase from Sèvres on May 9, 1778, which includes "36 Tasses à thé 4/144 [livres]".

Mount Vernon China (Mount Vernon, VA: MVLA, 1962), 29-34, fig. 21 (right).

Savill, Rosalind, The Wallace Collection: Catalog of Sévres Porcelain (London: The Trustees of the Wallace Collection, 1988), 2:527-33 (for description of "Bouillard" cups and saucers).

William Armstrong, "Some New Washington Relics. I. From the Collection of Mrs. B.W. Kennon," The Century Magazine 40/1 (May 1890): 20.
MarkingsOverglaze mark painted on bottom (in blue): factory mark or cipher of intertwined Ls with a script "g" below (unidentified gilder's mark). Underglaze incised marks, above the factory mark: "t", and below the factory mark: script letter "B" (unidentified marks).
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Saucer
Maker: Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory
Porcelain (soft paste), gilt
1778-1788
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