Wine Bottle Cooler

This wine bottle cooler was probably made in about 1775 to match earlier service pieces that were made around 1758 (see cat. 103 and 104). This later cooler is lighter and less heavily modeled than the earlier one is. The incised marks are consistent with those found on soft-paste Sèvres porcelain made during the eighteenth century and the painted marks are consistent with those made in the 1770s. The mark B may be that for the gilder Barré, who was active only between 1773 and 1778; the mark BD is probably for the gilder Baudouin. Barré was also known as a painter of flowers; however, as there are no flowers on the cooler, he must have participated in applying the gilded decoration. This grouped mark of B BD is also seen on three of the plates in cat. 106, which are dated for 1774 and 1775. The other painted mark on the cooler, in the shape of a mop head, is probably for the decorator Bouchet, who was known to paint landscapes with figures and animals. He would have painted the reserve scenes on the cooler.
The cooler is decorated with an overglaze pink ground with a large white shaped reserve painted in polychrome with scenes of huntsmen in forest settings on both sides. The rim was left white and not, as on the earlier cooler, decorated with the pink ground color. The reserves are edged by a gilt pattern of scrolls and flowering vines, all without tooling. One reserve shows three figures in blue coats and one figure in a mauve coat, each carrying a rifle and standing at the edge of a pond. The other reserve shows two figures in blue coats and two in mauve, one shooting at an animal running along the ground.
The ground color, painted decoration, and gilding on the cooler are all of poor quality, uncharacteristic of what is expected of eighteenth-century decoration produced at Sèvres. This has led to speculation that the cooler is a later copy of the 1758 service pieces. The porcelain, though, appears to be of eighteenth-century paste and does not exhibit signs typical of redecorated wares. Also, similar problems with the pink ground color and gilding are seen on pink-ground plates made in 1774 or 1775; see cat. 106. It seems more likely that the decoration on this cooler is of the period, but that it was made with little care as a supplementary piece for a rather old-fashioned service.