Sevres Porcelain
Sevres Porcelain denotes the wares produced by the once royal owned ‘Manufacture Nationale de Sevres’ in France which came to dominate European porcelain making in the mid 18th century and still survives today.
The factory traces its roots to early craftsmen who had small manufacturing operations in Lille, Rouen. St. Cloud, and most notably Chantilly. It is from Chantilly that a cadre of workers migrated to the Chateau de Vincennes near Paris to form a larger porcelain manufactory in 1738.
French King Louis XV, inspired by the wish to produce porcelain that surpassed the established Saxony manufacturers in Dresden and Meissen, took a very keen interest in porcelain and at the initiative of Madame de Pompadour moved the Vincennes operation to Sevres in 1756 which was convenient for both the Palace at Versailles and the home of Madame de Pompadour.
Unfortunately the French lacked a commercial supply of kaolin, the ingredient needed to make hard-paste porcelain of the type made by Meissen and Dresden and the Chinese. However, their soft-paste porcelain, being fired at lower temperatures, could take a wider variety of colours and glazes which gave a richer and more vivid finish. Their unglazed ‘biscuit’ figurines were also very successful. But the soft-paste porcelain was more fragile than the hard-paste variety and early pieces of Sevres Porcelain that are undamaged are very rare indeed.
It seems that the Sevres Porcelain manufactory was always in dire financial straits despite the exquisite works it produced. It was probably the king’s insistence that the factory only produce the very best that led to the difficulties, as only a limited number of European aristocracy could afford the extravagant prices.
To keep it going Louis and his son Louis XVI had to invest heavily and thus the brand became ‘Royal’. Louis XV also severely restricted other porcelain producers in France giving Sevres a near monopoly. He even went as far as hosting a New Year’s Day show for the French nobility in his Versailles private quarters and acted as chief salesman circulating amongst his guests and persuading them to buy.
Sevres Porcelain did eclipse Meissen and Dresden in the latter part of the 18th Century as it came to represent the epitome of luxury and taste in keeping with the utter extravagance of the French Court. This came to a sudden end with the French Revolution in 1789 and the Sevres Porcelain Manufactory nearly went out of business due to the economic catastrophe that followed.
A new director, Alexandre Brogniart took it during Napoleon Bonaparte’s rule as Emperor of France, and he eliminated soft-paste in favour of hard-paste production thanks to the earlier discovery of ample reserves of kaolin near Limoges. Under Brogniart’s inspired leadership, the factory experienced major growth throughout the 19th Century with the installation of new kilns and transferred to special buildings which were built by the French state in 1875. This success was largely due to the production of wares which the new emerging middle-classes could afford.
Today, the factory has been merged with the Musee national de Ceramique- Sevres and together with other nationalised porcelain produces forms the Cite de la ceramique- Sevres et Limoges. This public body is charged with producing ceramic works of art using artisanal techniques and promoting artistic and technological research in ceramics. It still has a commercial operation, producing upmarket artistic pieces using high quality artisan techniques but no longer does mass production.