Pair of Plates (Assiettes) (c. 1748–51): Art, History and Details

Pair of Plates (Assiettes) (c. 1748–51) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Vincennes Porcelain Factory (France, 1740–56).

The work and its context

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

Known as “German flowers,” naturalistic floral compositions painted on Meissen factory porcelain in the 1740s influenced the paintings of French and English porcelain factories. At the Vincennes factory in the 1750s, botanically accurate flower paintings were regularly represented. The flowers seen here take inspiration from Meissen, while at the same time representing an early attempt at a distinctly French style of porcelain painting that emphasized bright, clear colors.

Object facts

• Title: Pair of Plates (Assiettes)
• Date: c. 1748–51
• Creator attribution: Vincennes Porcelain Factory (France, 1740–56)
• Culture: France, Vincennes
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Soft-paste porcelain with enamel and gilt decoration
• Dimensions: Diameter: 24.5 cm (9 5/8 in.)
• Collection: Decorative Arts
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 1961.7

A detail from the museum

Though the Vincennes porcelain factory had a royal privilege for gilding as early as 1745, it was not until 1748 that they were able to put this process into practice when they bought the secret to its production from Benedictine monk, Hippolyte Lefleure.

Collection credit

The Norweb Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hawley, Henry. "Ceramics of the Rococo Age." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 48 (March 1961).

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.