Medallion portrait of Alexandre Brongniart, 1847. Biscuit porcelain.

 

The Sevres Porcelain Manufactory

Brongniart and the Triumph of Art

By Judith B. Gura

The decades following the French Revolution of 1789 were marked by cataclysmic shifts in a social structure that had endured for centuries. The fall of the Ancien Regime and the rise of a new industrial proletariat brought about dramatic changes in the way people lived, socialized and furnished their homes.

In the course of these changes, many firms dependent on the patronage of the monarchs and nobles fell by the wayside. Not, however, the Sevres Porcelain Manufactory, which negotiated the tumultuous seas of the country's shift between monarchy, empire and republic, making the transition from royally-annointed purveyors of grand objects to producer of tablewares for the affluent bourgeoisie.

As the country was transformed, so was the manufactory itself, its revival due largely to the efforts of its longtime director, Alexandre Brongniart. The accomplishments of this multi-talented man and the factory he directed for almost half a century, are traced in the current exhibition at the gallery of Bard Graduate Center in New York City, "The Sevres Porcelain Manufactory: Alexandre Brongniart and the Triumph of Art and Industry, 1800-1847."

Although Sevres has been the subject of considerable scholarly attention, this has been directed primarily to its Eighteenth Century production. Under Brongniart, however, the factory implemented an aggressive program of technical development, chemical research and artistic exploration that were unparalleled in its previous history and influenced not only its own production but those of other European firms. This exhibition shows the importance of this heretofore little-known period in the history of ceramic art.

The exhibition, which includes material from the Sevres archives that has never been seen in this country, was curated by Tamara Preaud, who for 28 years has directed the archives of the Manufacture Nationale de Sevres. She selected 110 extraordinary working drawings and watercolors illustrating not only the variety of designs commissioned by Brongniart's administration - including not only tableware, but designs for furniture, wall ornament and other objects - but also the exceptional skill of the artists he employed - including Alexander-Evariste Fragonard, Jean Charles Develly, and Brongniart's architect father, Alexandre-Theodore.

Complementing the drawings are a series of unglazed white porcelain blanks from the first half of the Nineteenth Century, illustrating some of the distinctive shapes developed by the company during this time. Finally, there are almost three dozen pieces of finished works in hard-paste and biscuit porcelain, on loan from museums and private collections. Ranging from monumental presentation pieces, to plates whose centers are miniature paintings, to intricately-painted cups and saucers, and dessert or tea sets, these works illustrate the capabilities of the factory's craftsmanship in molding, firing, painting and glazing. They also show, as renderings cannot, the remarkable quality of the porcelain developed by Sevres under Brongniart's meticulous direction, and point up the scope of his accomplishments at Sevres.

The company had been founded in 1738 at Chateau de Vincennes, by workmen from the ceramics factory at Chantilly. Initially, its production focused on Saxon-style porcelain, painted and gilded figures, and ornamental stemmed flowers. It benefitted, early on, from preferential royal treatment - a 20-year monopoly on porcelain production, and the designation as Manufacturer Royale de Porcelaine when Louis XV became its major shareholder in 1752. In 1759 the king assumed control of the manufactory operations, considering himself not only chief client but chief salesman as well - each year, he conducted a sale in his private apartments at Versailles, at which members of the court were strongly encouraged to purchase goods. (One imagines they could hardly have felt inclined to refuse what amounted to a royal edict.) Under pressure of strong protests from other factories of the unfair advantage to Sevres, the exclusivity restrictions were eased, but the others were still prohibited from doing gilding or colored grounds, both of which made the Sevres products not only distinctive, but particularly desirable in an era when tastes ran to extravagant decoration. Sevres moved to its present location in 1768, and was renamed for that city. It continued to prosper, becoming celebrated for its exquisite glazes and rich background colors, including "blue de roi," turquoise, yellow, peagreen and "rose Pompadour," named for the notorious royal mistress. Decoration was floral and figural, often in white-background panels outlined in gold, with lavish applications of gilding on edges, handles and bases.

In the days of the monarchy, virtually every state or political occasion, and any numbers of events, called for the commission of another extravagant Sevres piece. It was a time of growing prestige and prosperity, as the manufactory's reputation, and its clients, spread across the courts of Europe. Lavish dinner services, monumental urns and centerpieces, and extravagant serving ware graced the courts and palaces of Europe. The French Revolution put a stop to all of that. As patron of the manufactory, the king had consumed quantities of porcelain, but his military expenditures had left the court, and its purveyors, financially strapped. This only exacerbated the problems faced after the Revolution removed not only the king himself, but the nobility which had accounted for a large portion of its clientele.

Brongniart was appointed to direct the manufactory in 1800, shortly after it had been declared the property of the government. He inherited a firm that was a shabby skeleton of its former self, its coffers empty, materials in short supply and stock depleted by appropriations of merchandise by various government departments. With a work force reduced from 235 to 66 - a cut of 75 percent - and production severely curtailed, he faced a considerable challenge. Moreover, he was only 30 years old at the time, and a scientist rather than an administrator, with little or no knowledge of ceramic arts. Although his appointment was criticized for these reasons, Brongniart proved uniquely qualified for the job he was given. The son of an architect, and the nephew of a scientist, the young man had been raised in an atmosphere that not only gave him the benefits of a cultivated upper-class education, but also exposed him to extensive contact with celebrated practitioners of science and the arts. Pursuing a career in science, he had been a founding member of the Societe des Philomathique (Amis des Science) as well as a member of the Societe d'Histoire Naturelle, and was skilled not only in chemistry, but mineralogy and botany as well. He taught zoology and natural history, held positions on several important faculties, and published recognized scientific works. At Sevres, he took the same wide-ranging approach applying his insatiable curiosity and enthusiastic interest to all aspects of the firm's operations, implementing changes and efficiencies in almost every department. He was almost singlehandedly responsible for restoring the factory's financial equilibrium, and, even more important, for initiating design and technical advances that equalled or surpassed those of any other factory in Europe, maintaining and enhancing the reputation Sevres had enjoyed for its extraordinary artistic achievements under the Ancien Regime.

On taking over the factory, Brongniart immediately destroyed the molds for old forms associated with the monarchy, and held auction sales to dispose of outdated merchandise and raise funds to pay the workers and purchase raw materials for production. Autocratically, he assumed control of every major decision, from approval of each design to the smallest detail about an artist's payment.

Brongniart's chief accomplishments were in several areas: he varied the manufactory's offerings by bringing in outside artists to contribute new designs and conceive new shapes for production, he instituted a program of scientific and technical research and experimentation to develop improved glazes and perfect formulas for hard-paste porcelain, and he divided production into two areas - everyday pieces for use, and special pieces for exhibitions and government presentations - the first would make the factory profitable, the second would enhance its reputation. Wisely, he arranged for the government to fund the "official" works to be produced. He also instituted a program of annual exhibitions at the Louvre, in which the factory showed off its newest designs, eliciting not only critical acclaim but considerable business as well. Last, and perhaps historically even more important, Brongniart established a museum of ceramics in which he collected not only examples of antique ceramic pieces from all over the world, but models from contemporary production as well. In his travels and extensive communications in search of materials for the collection, Brongniart not only gained considerable knowledge to help his own efforts for Sevres, but created a valuable repository of ceramic history. In addition to the ceramics for which Sevres is best know, the firm also maintained prosperous stained-glass and painting-on-glass workshops, and produced porcelain sculpture as well as a number of specially-commissioned works of furniture and ornamental panels. Brongniart oversaw these operations as well.

By the time of his death in 1847, he had built a prosperous and considerably larger operation, a flourishing business prepared to move into the future with the Second Republic. That the company still thrives today must be largely the result of practices instituted in his long and extraordinarily enlightened leadership.

Almost from its founding, Sevres, along with other ceramics producers in France, had been attempting to develop the formula for porcelain such as that produced at Meissen. In the mid-1760s, the factory produced its first true porcelain pieces, made with imported kaolin from Austria. In 1768, when natural deposits of the material were found on French soil, at a quarry near Limoges, contentious price negotiations ensued until a Sevres chemist finally located the source and the factory was able to obtain what proved to be the finest clay in Europe. From 1769, production of hard paste rivaled that of its predecessor.

In 1801, Brongniart decided to discontinue production of the soft-paste porcelain for which the company had first gained renown, to concentrate entirely on the newly-perfected hard paste form. Despite the exquisite qualities of the soft-paste glazes, critics had begun to criticize it as inferior and "fake," as opposed to the "genuine' hard-paste, made with a natural material. Moreover, soft-past porcelain objects had been associated with the time of the Ancien Regime, and the decision to abandon them was another gesture to indicate that the factory was moving on with the rest of France into a post-monarchic era.

Proving a skillful diplomat as well as a brilliant administrator, Brongniart dealt with the changing political climates in France, adjusting his personal manner - and the factory production - to deal appropriately with each successive ruling power, from the Consulate, through the reign of Napoleon I, the Restoration period of Louis XVII and Charles X, and finally Louis-Philippe.

The objects produced at Sevres reflected motifs which changed along with the fortunes of France, with Brongniart directing the creation of new decorative motifs along with new forms and glazes. Looking at the sequence of renderings and actual objects in the exhibition, one can trace the progression from those of the Napoleonic era, back again to symbols of royalty and then service for the affluent bourgeoisie.

When Napoleon came to power, in 1894, he inherited a series of royal residences which had been stripped bare by the Revolution, and proceeded to furnish them as elegantly as possible in order to establish his position as the rightful heir to the monarchic tradition. He became a welcome patron to the decorative arts producers, purchasing lavish services from Sevres (one of them, for example, included no less than 72 place settings), as well as commissioning elaborate presentation pieces which he sent to foreign rulers and others he wished to impress. Sevres porcelain pieces of this period often bore symbols suggestive of the Empire, including classical and laurel leaf motifs, and motifs reflecting the influence of his successful Egyptian campaign. Percier and Fontaine, architects to the Emperor and the people largely responsible for the Neoclassical Revival which swept France in this period, contributed designs that inspired Sevres pieces as well as the furnishings of elegant Parisian interiors. In addition, experiments with glazes for hard-paste porcelain resulted in several new background colors, including deep green, yellow and even black. Elements of Napoleonic court life, Etruscan vases, and exotica of the East - including designs inspired by India, Turkey and Japan - appeared as decoration on dinnerware and decorative objects.

Many of the pieces in the exhibition illustrate themes along these lines: a striking tall column clock from 1813, presented by Napoleon to the wife of Marshall Ney; several pieces from the Service "iconographique grec," depicting cameo-like representations of famous men of antiquity, framed in deep blue ground flecked and bordered in gold, and a striking pair of Grecian-shape vases "Etrusque a rouleaux," with green backgrounds and classical figures. One of the most striking watercolors of this era is an 1806 design by Brongniart himself, an extravagant, classically-inspired fruit bowl in deep blue and gold, with chimera feet, pineapple finial and classical frieze.

With the Restoration, all suggestions of the Empire vanished, and a wave of naturalistic decor swept through the factory's production, including flowers and genre scenes as well as motifs reflecting the late-coming industrial revolution. The latter, inspired the 1820 Service "des arts industriels," shown in several plates whose painted central motifs depict various industries of the time, like an updated and elegant take on Diderot's Encyclopedia of several centuries past. In this period, with the return to Paris of the previously-exiled nobility, came a wave of Gothic Revival designs, shown in several exquisitely-detailed small pieces - including an 1827 Tasse "Gothique," with intricately-painted motifs reflecting Gothic architecture and stained-glass colors, richly bordered in gold.

In the so-called July Monarchy, Louis Philippe needed porcelain for his palaces - this was the time of Fontainbleau, and the Renaissance Revival, and the factory's designs mixed history and industry. A new brownish-purple glaze appeared to push aside the traditional blue and green, and many pieces left more white surface uncovered, for a lighter overall look. The exotica of Oriental design became even more popular - a Dejeuner "Culture et Recolte dy Cacao" of 1836 depicts the cultivation of the then-exotic bean, displayed in the exhibition along side a watercolor drawing for the service.

The versatility of the manufactory's craftsmen is suggested by three exceptional drawings from this period shown in the exhibition. The first is a drawing for an enameled coffer by the celebrated architect Viollet-le-Duc, with finely-detailed Gothic and religious ornaments. Although the illustrated design was never made, the factory under Brongniart did open a workshop for enamel-on-copper pieces. The second depicts an elaborate bureau-secretaire in with elaborate Chinese ornamentation adapted, according to Brongniart, from authentic examples of the style, and exhibited by the company at its Louvre exhibition in 1844. The third is a jewelry casket illustrating the female toilette in different parts of the world, a fascinating piece shaped like a Medieval reliquary and densely-patterned with Renaissance-style motifs. Sevres produced a number of unusual pieces such as these, though they were generally special commissions or made for exhibition rather than belonging to production for stock, as did the standard porcelain tableware.

It was during the Nineteenth Century that France evolved the art of cuisine which would become celebrated throughout the world. As Brillat-Savarin codified the newly-named science of gastronomy, Antonin Careme established a reputation as "king of chefs and chef to Kings," in the process securing France the position of leader in the world of cuisine - a reputation it has retained through the current century. Appropriately, as new foods came onto French tables, along with new ways of serving them, new styles and shapes of containers were required - and Sevres was swift to accommodate the need. From containers for ice, to elaborately shaped and decorated teapots (several charming designs for these are seen in the exhibition), to dessert services, to dejeuners (luncheon was a new, post-Revolutionary invention), to ice cream cups or pots-de-creme for the newly-popular confections to containers for costly and much-valued sugar, the factory produced objects to serve cherished foodstuffs in appropriately elegant fashion. One of the most appealing designs in the exhibition is a horn-shape cream jug in deep blue and gold, its base a sculptural-shaped ram's head; another is a sugar bowl that replicates a pineapple.

In almost 50 years directing the firm, during which he remained intimately involved with all aspects of its operation - from meticulous oversight of expenditures, to development of new formulas for porcelain and glazes, to the actual design of many forms and decorations, to the publication of a landmark work on ceramic arts, to extensive travels on behalf of his ongoing research and development of technical and aesthetic improvements, Brongniart was undeniably the guiding force behind Sevre's illustrious achievements. While so doing, however, he also restored considerable luster to the image of France itself, and its leadership in the manufacture of luxury goods - thereby enhancing the country's trading prospects in the international marketplace. For that fact, as well as his contributions to the manufactory, this multifaceted and multitalented autocrat more than merits the belated recognition which this exhibition awards.

The exhibition "The Sevres Porcelain Manufactory: Alexander Brongniart and the Triumph of Art and Industry: 1800-1847" will be at the Bard Graduate Center, 18 West 86 Street in New York City, through January 1988. The exhibition is accompanied by a full-color, profusely-illustrated 415-page catalogue, including essays by six prominent scholars as well as Tamara Preaud. It was edited by Derek Ostergaard, Associate Director of the Bard Graduate Center.