Triangular Potpourri Vase, 1761

  • Charles-Nicolas Dodin, French, 1734-1803
  • Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory, French, active 1756 - present
  • Jean-Claude Duplessis, père, Italian, 1690-1774

Soft-paste porcelain with enamel decoration and gilding

  • Overall: 12 × 6 1/2 × 7 inches (30.5 × 16.5 × 17.8 cm)

Bequest of Mrs. Horace E. Dodge in memory of her husband

71.247

On View

  • Fashionable Living, Level 3, South
  • Fashionable Living, Level 3, South

Department

European Sculpture and Dec Arts

This pair of pot pourri vases, probably purchased by King Louis XV in December 1762, demonstrates the highest achievements in porcelain production in eighteenth-century Europe. Pot pourris, available in a wide variety of materials and shapes, were a ubiquitous feature of the eighteenth-century interior. Designed both as pot pourris and as bulb pots, these rare models represent the rococo's fondness for complex and novel forms. The front of each vase depicts a scene of Chinese life based on engravings after François Boucher.

possibly Louis XV. (Duveen Brothers, New York, New York, USA)

1939-1971, Anna Thomson Dodge [Mrs. Horace E. Dodge] (Grosse Pointe, Michigan, USA)

1971-present, bequest to the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

inokur, R. "The Mr. and Mrs. Horace E. Dodge Memorial Collection." Bulletin of the DIA 50, no. 3 (1971): pp. 43-51: Dauterman, C. "Sèvres Figure Painting in the Anna Thomson Dodge Collection." The Burlington Magazine 118 (November 1976): p. 757 (figs. 29-31). Brunet, M. and T. Préaud. Sèvres: des origines à nos jours. Fribourg, 1978, pp. 64, 72. de Bellaigue, Geoffrey. "Sèvres Artists and Their Sources II: Engravings." The Burlington Magazine 122, no. 932 (November 1980): p. 755. Marandel, J.P. "Boucher et les 'chinoiseries.'" L'oeil, no. 374 (September 1986): p. 34 (fig. 5). François Boucher 1703-1770. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts, Grand Palais, and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Detroit, Paris, and New York, 1986, cat. no. 114 (ill.). Sasoon, A. Vincennes and Sèvres Porcelain: Catalogue of the Collectons of the J. Paul Getty Museum. Malibu, 1991, p. 46. Dell, T., et al. The Dodge Collection of Eighteenth-Century French and English Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts. New York and Detroit, 1996, no. 41, pp 156-158, (ill.) p. 157, (ill.) p. 158, (ills.) p. 156.

Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory; Jean-Claude Duplessis, père; Charles-Nicolas Dodin, Triangular Potpourri Vase, 1761, soft-paste porcelain with enamel decoration and gilding. Detroit Institute of Arts, Bequest of Mrs. Horace E. Dodge in memory of her husband, 71.247.