Caster (Saupoudreuse) (c. 1732–38): Art, History and Details

Caster (Saupoudreuse) (c. 1732–38) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Saint Cloud Porcelain Factory (French).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This cylindrical caster with a removable pierced cover may have held sugar. It likely derives its form from silver casters manufactured pre-1700. Its all-white, molded, prunus branch decorations are characteristic of blanc de chine, the term used in France to reference the highly prized porcelain produced in the southeastern Fujian province of Dehua, China, known for its pure color and high degree of translucence.

Object facts

• Title: Caster (Saupoudreuse)
• Date: c. 1732–38
• Creator attribution: Saint Cloud Porcelain Factory (French)
• Culture: France, Saint Cloud, 18th century
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: soft-paste porcelain, silver mount
• Dimensions: Overall: 21.9 cm (8 5/8 in.)
• Collection: Decorative Arts
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 1947.177

A detail from the museum

Prunus branches, which refer to flowering trees and shrubs including plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and almonds, were a common motif in Chinese porcelain.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Foote, Helen S. "French Soft-Paste Porcelain." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 34, no. 10 (December 1947): 249-250.
• Foote, Helen S. "Soft-Paste Porcelain of France." The Art Quarterly 11 (Autumn 1948).
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.