Sèvres soft paste porcelain bleu lapis ground part dessert service. The plates are painted in the centre with a bunch of flowers (and fruit in some instances) and in the three reserves on the border with flowers in foliate cartouches in tooled and burnished gold. The square, oval and round fruit dishes are also painted with flowers in four reserves within foliate cartouches. On the shell-shaped fruit dish a single elaborately scrolled foliate reserve is painted in the centre with a bunch of fruit and flowers. The plates, their border plain but slightly concave, have a white outer rim, edged with gold, composed of twelve evenly sized scallops. The rim, which is moulded, is decorated in faint relief with an inner scalloped gold line. A gold band marks the perimeter of the well. On the inside of the round fruit dish three raised leaves, edged with gold, alternate with three trapeze-shaped panels painted dark blue with caillouté gilding. On the outside trapeze-shaped panels alternate with plain raised white panels of cabbage-leaf outline, which do not have a crinkled edge. Polychrome bouquets and trails of flowers (roses, anemones (some double-headed), convolvulus, auriculas, asters, imperial fritillary, forget-me-nots, harebells, jasmine, etc.), which are combined on some pieces with fruit (peaches, plums, figs, pomegranates, grapes, cherries, apples, etc.), form the decoration.

At least six of these services were produced during the 1760s, when this type of decoration was at its most popular, often presented as diplomatic gifts and one owned by Louis XV himself. Therefore, it may well be that the two services in the Royal Collection were each made up of pieces drawn from different sources. The popularity of the pattern was such that it was copied at Meissen in the 1780s and at Worcester in the early nineteenth century.

49 pieces: 39 plates, 1 round fruit dish, 4 shell-shaped fruit dishes, 3 square fruit dishes, 2 oval fruit dishes.

Text adapted from French Porcelain: In the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, London, 2009

Measurements:

Plates .1-.39 2.6 to 3.0 x 24.0 to 24.6, round fruit dish 4.7 x 22.1, .1–.4 shell-shaped fruit dishes 5.4 to 5.7 x 21.9 to 22.0 x 21.6 to 21.7, .1–.3 square fruit dishes 4.1 to 4.4 x 21.3 to 21.4 x 21.6 to 21.7, .1–.2 oval fruit dishes 4.0 x 27.5 to 27.7 x 19.4 to 19.5 cm