Sèvres - Jacob Meyer-Heine (Paris 1805 - 1879)
Pair of covered vases in enamelled copper and gilt bronze of baluster form, the ovoid body resting on a pedestal, provided with two handles, the narrow neck slightly flared surmounted by a flat lid finished by a gilt bronze pine cone, The sides are formed by a band decorated in purple, black and gold of a rotating frieze on a background of figures in grisaille on a vase The Mysteries of Eleusis and on the other The Dionysians.
The first vase representing devils and skeletons torturing a man caught in flames, under the eyes of seated men, one holding a scepter, probably the Gods of the Underworld Hades and his wife Persephone, the other face decorated with two figures leaving a cave framed by two men armed with swords and daggers, probably Demeter and Persephone leaving the Underworld.
The other vase decorated with Silenus on a donkey, bacchic children, bacchantes, goats and satyrs, the shoulder of each vase decorated with grotesque monsters, lion masks, foliage scrolls, groups of fruit and ribbons in the style of the Renaissance on a blue background, the legend of each vase inscribed in gold on a pattern of cut leather: "MYSTERIES OF ELEVSIS" and "THE DIONYSIAQVES".
The neck, the pedestal and the handles also with blue background enhanced in turquoise and gold with acanthus leaves, garlands of fruit and foliage and scrolls, the neck framed with two acanthus leaves in gilt bronze, gadroons and a row of pearls in gilt bronze at the junction between the foot and the vase. The vase of the Eleusis mysteries marked under the foot in gold : " SÈVRES ". The vase of the Dionysiacs marked in gold under the foot: "Mre Impériale Sèvres JMH" (for Jacob Meyer-Heine) "E P Laemlin Pxt 1855".
The painting by Jacob Meyer-Heine, Alexandre Laemlein and Jean Baptiste César Philip.
Napoleon III era, year 1855
H. 33.5 cm
(Some restorations, notably to three handles).
Provenance:
Delivered to the furniture of the Crown in 1856
Bibliography:
- Anne Dion-Tenenbaum, La Renaissance de l'émail sous la Monarchie de Juillet, Bibliothèque de l'école des chartes, January-June 2005, volume 163, pp. 145-164.
- Pascal Massé, " Jacob Meyer-Heine (1805-1879) et l'atelier d'émaillage sur métaux à la manufacture de Sèvres " Sèvres, Revue des amis du musée national de céramique, 2011, n° 20, pp. 105-114.
- Tamara Préaud, " Le style Renaissance à Sèvres du XIXe siècle ", Revue d'Art canadienne, VI/1/1979, pp. 28-35. Bernard Chevallier, " Les émaux de Sèvres ", L'Estampille- L'Objet d'art, n° 245, 1991.
- Dimitri Joannidès, " Quand Limoges débarque à Sèvres ", Gazette de Drouot, n° 16, 22 April 2016.
The early 1830s saw a new interest in medieval and Renaissance forms and techniques. Claude-Aimé Chenavard provided the Sèvres porcelain factory with designs drawn from the Renaissance repertoire, also a source of inspiration for other ornamentalists: Feuchère, Froment-Meurice, Liénard or the silversmith Charles Wagner. The latter played a major role in the revival of enamel. In 1829, he filed a patent for the niello technique and then developed a platinum alloy as a support for the enamel. Jacob Meyer-Heine most likely worked in Wagner's workshop and thus mastered the enamel technique.
Alexandre Brongniart examined in 1838 a small cup with a black background, flowers and ornaments in grisaille, made by Jacob Meyer-Heine and which seduced the director of the Sèvres factory. Meyer-Heine worked with the Sèvres factory from 1840 as an enamel painter before being hired as a staff member in 1843. In 1840 he painted a copper cup enamelled in grisaille on a black background, but for the next five years Alexandre Brongniart asked him to apply enamel paint to porcelain, thus imitating Limoges enamels by replacing the porcelain cover with the enamel itself. Two Adelaide porcelain vases painted by Jacob Meyer-Heine in 1842, presented at the Exposition des Produits de l'Industrie on May 1, 1842, are now in the Musée Condé in Chantilly. He also painted a Henri II porcelain cup decorated in grisaille on a black background with scrolls, grotesque ornaments, foliage and putti, now in the collections of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1844, he painted a second pair of Adelaide vases, now in the Louvre Museum, as well as a pair of Fragonard Gothic vases, now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
On the advice of Brongniart, King Louis-Philippe, who had already initiated the creation of a glass painting workshop at the Sèvres factory, wished to associate enamel decorations on metal with the vitrifiable color paintings on porcelain. In September 1845, an enameling workshop was set up and Jacob Meyer-Heine was entrusted with the work to take over the work of the workshop.
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