Large Tray in Corbeille Shape Tea Set: Grand Dejeuner Corbeille
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Luxury and Passion: Inventing French Porcelain, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, August 13 2022–August 12 2024, no cat.
Probably commissioned by King Louis XV (1710-1774), Versailles, France, 1757 [1];
Probably his gift to Empress Maria-Theresa of Austria (1717-1780), Vienna, 1758 [2];
With Rosenberg & Stiebel, New York, stock no. 4528, by October 18, 1963;
Purchased from Rosenberg & Stiebel by Henry Ford II (1917-1987), Grosse Pointe, MI, October 18, 1963-1982 [3];
With Bernard Dragesco-Didier Cramoisan, Paris, by June 1989;
Purchased from Bernard Dragesco-Didier Cramoisan, through the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Perry Faeth, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1989.
NOTES:
[1] Although not definitively confirmed, this set is likely the “Grand Déjeuner B.C. [bleu celeste] Mosaïque” valued at 1440 livres in the Sèvres sales registers, delivered to Louis XV in 1758 as part of a large diplomatic gift of porcelain to Empress Maria-Theresa of Austria. Manufacture nationale de Sèvres archive, Vy’ 2, folio 85 (bas), copies in Nelson-Atkins curatorial file.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Frick Art Reference Library, New York, MS.065, Rosenberg & Stiebel archive, Subject Files – Ford, Henry, II, copies in Nelson-Atkins curatorial files. The set was offered for sale by Ford at Fine English and Continental Pottery, Porcelain and Wedgwood, Christie, Manson & Woods, April 21, 1982, lot 142, but was withdrawn.
