Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres Two Rapin n°... Lot 51

Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres Two Rapin n° 6 sconces in translucent new hard paste porcelain, 1921 and 1929, ribbed base, top decorated with a frieze with engraved medallion of Rapin and Gauvenet. Marked: black stamp S 1921 DN for pâte dure nouvelle and red stamp decorated in Sèvres 1921. Marked: black cachet "à la rose" letter date b. The 1921 sconce: Height: 31.5 cm - Width: 23.6 cm - Depth 11.9 cm The 1929 sconce: Height: 31.1 cm - Width: 23.4 cm - Depth: 11.7 cm Thanks to its constituents - kaolin, feldspar and quartz - porcelain, when fine, becomes translucent. This property was used as early as the 18th century by the Sèvres manufactory, which produced "garde-vues", lighting fixtures with translucent walls. From 1827 onwards, Sèvres produced lithophanies, small porcelain pictures in which intaglio engravings create a play of light and shadow. From 1925 to 1930, designer Henri Rapin and sculptor Jean-Baptiste Gauvenet created over thirty models and decorations for porcelain lighting fixtures based on the lithophanie principle. The success of their "salon de lumière", presented at the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, led to the prestigious commission of six large lighting vases, designed by Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann for the Île-de-France liner inaugurated in 1927. Henri Rapin is a French illustrator, painter and decorator. He was a pupil of Jean-Léon Gérôme and artistic advisor at the Manufacture de Sèvres from 1920 to 1934, where he invented new forms. Rapin was involved in the creation of some fifteen works in the collections of the Mobilier National (ceramics, lighting, clocks, screens, seats). For the majority of these, he collaborated with other artists, notably Jean Veber, Odilon Redon, Marcel Prunier and Josep Jardi Guardiola, also represented in the Mobilier National collections.