This set of 16 plates, their borders slightly concave, have serpentine rims of twelve even scallops, within each of which is a fringe of shallow flutes. Gold bands run round the outer and inner rims of the borders, the former serrated. The borders are decorated in gold with four floral garlands and four swags. The ends of each pair of garlands, together with the swag they flank, are suspended from a single leaf motif on the rim; each garland is seemingly threaded through two gold rings. In the centre of the plates the design is formed by a diamond within a square, from which radiate four large oval panels alternating with four smaller ones.

The terms used at Sèvres to identify this unusual form of gilded decoration were probably ‘a culots bleus brétés en or’ and ‘En Culots Bleux brettés d’or’. These expressions were applied to overtime work undertaken by Antoine-Louis Fontelliau in 1768 and 1769 respectively.

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