Plate Depicting the Soap Bubble Blower (La souffleuse de savon) (c. 1760–70): Art, History and Details

Plate Depicting the Soap Bubble Blower (La souffleuse de savon) (c. 1760–70) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jean Daulle (French, 1703–1763); François Boucher (French, 1703–1770).

The work and its context

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

English potteries often courted aristocratic clients with cheaper wares that looked like more expensive works from the major centers of porcelain production in the eighteenth century, especially France, Germany, and China. In this case, the image printed in center of the plate depicts a young lady, enticing a boy with her skill at blowing soap bubbles through a thin pipe. The print was taken from an etching by Jean Daullé (French, 1703–1763), of the painting La souffleuse de savon (1758) by Francois Boucher (French, 1703–1770).

Object facts

• Title: Plate Depicting the Soap Bubble Blower (La souffleuse de savon)
• Date: c. 1760–70
• Creator attribution: Jean Daulle (French, 1703–1763); François Boucher (French, 1703–1770)
• Culture: England, Staffordshire, 18th century
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: salt-glazed, transfer-printed stoneware
• Dimensions: Diameter: 21 cm (8 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Decorative Arts
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 1948.118

A detail from the museum

This plate depicts a young lady blowing soap bubbles next to a very interested young boy.

Collection credit

Gift of R. Thornton Wilson in memory of his wife, Florence Ellsworth Wilson

Further reading listed by the museum

• Foote, Helen. "Salt-Glaze Plate, 'Blowing Soap Bubbles.'" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 35, no. 7 (September 1948): 162-163.

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.