Saucer
Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory
Category
Ceramics
Date
1776 - 1788
Materials
Porcelain and gilt
Measurements
32 mm (H); 135 mm (Dia)
Place of origin
Sèvres
Order this imageCollection
Powis Castle and Garden, Powys
NT 1181042.24
Summary
Saucer (soucoupe), painted and gilded by Jean-Jacques Dieu (op.1777-90, 1794-8, 1803-10) at the Sèvres factory, France. Red ground with green and white stripes, the cup with two and the saucer with three reserves of classical urns and swags. Paired with cup (gobelet litron) (NT 1181042.23). Part of a group of 12 hard and soft paste cups and saucers, painted with polychrome decoration in different colours, presented to Tipu Sultan of Mysuru in 1788 by Louis XVI of France.
Full description
This saucer (soucoupe) was given to Tipu Sultan (1750-99), the ruler of the South Indian state of Mysuru (formerly known as Mysore), in 1788. In 1787, Tipu sent an embassy to France seeking a military alliance and the exchange of skilled workers. In October 1788, Tipu's ambassadors returned to Mysuru, conveying as a gift from King Louis XVI of France (1754-93) a massive presentation service of Sèvres porcelain, including washbasins, hookahs, busts, and these cups and saucers. While some items were commissioned for the occ asion, many were not. The Powis pieces here were manufactured between 1776 and 1788. A detailed provenance of NT 1529539 at Hinton Ampner gives an example of how other Sèvres items came to be included in the gift from Louis XVI to Tipu Sultan. Some pieces in this Powis group have been tentatively identified in Liste des porcelaines destinées à Tippoo-Sultan at the archives of the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres [Archer et al, p. 141]. Tipu was a powerful ruler whose reign was characterised by military conflict and reform. During his 17-year reign, Tipu introduced direct revenue collection, changes to land ownership, investment in agriculture and industrialisation, and social reforms. He also supported the establishment of factories and trading companies beyond Mysuru and the immigration of skilled foreign workers in order to develop local capability to produce modern firearms [Satyanarayana, p. 2245-7]. Research Note on Provenance Tipu Sultan spent much of his reign engaged in the defence of Mysuru against encroachment by the British East India Company. In 1798, a renewed British campaign provoked the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War. On 4th May 1799, during the Siege of Srirangapatna, Tipu was killed. In the immediate aftermath, the British army looted the town. According to Colonel Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, ‘Scarcely a house in the town was left unplundered, and I understand that in camp jewels of the greatest value, bars of gold etc etc have been offered for sale in the bazaars of the army by our soldiers, sepoys and followers. I came in to take command of the army on the morning of the 5th and with the greatest exertion, by hanging, flogging etc etc in the course of that day I restored order…’ [Dalrymple, p. 351]. The resumption of control by the higher ranks of the army enabled the work of the prize committee to begin. Prize committees were responsible for ‘collecting, inventorying and disposing of booty seized from the enemy and for … seeking to establish combatants’ entitlement to prize' [Finn, p.17]. They were intended to prevent the kind of undisciplined plunder which Wellesley reported in the aftermath of Tipu’s defeat at Srirangapatna. More than 1,000 commissioned officers took their allotted share in the captured property, which they kept, exchanged or sold to others. High value, or high-profile items, were excluded from the prize committee’s remit, and given to senior civil and military personnel, as well as the British royal family. Not all articles were genuine: tenuous or spurious attributions to Tipu Sultan have been identified in objects which were brought to Britain. Recent work on a sword at the Wallace Collection [OA1402] has shown that an inscription on the blade suggesting personal ownership by Tipu was added after his death in 1799. These cups and saucers were removed from Srirangapatna after Tipu’s death. Edward and Henrietta Clive (1754-1839) were then resident in India, while Edward was Governor of Madras (1798-1803). A survey of contemporary documentary evidence in 2019 found no mention of these objects in relation to the Clives. However, we know that they were at Edward and Henrietta’s main residence, Walcot Hall, until 1930, when they were brought to Powis.
Provenance
Brought to Powis Castle from Walcot Hall in 1930. Accepted by HM Treasury on 21st March, 1963 in lieu of tax, placed on long term loan to the National Trust, then gifted to National Trust on 26th March 1991.
Marks and inscriptions
Marks 'LL' interlaced, no date mark; mark of Jean-Jacques Dieu (op.1777-90, 1794-8, 1803-10, painter and gilder).
Makers and roles
Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory , potter
Exhibition history
Visitors to Versailles (1682-1789), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2017 - 2018 Visitors to Versailles (1682-1789), Palace of Versailles, France, 2017 - 2018
References
Archer, Rowell and Skelton 1987 Mildred Archer, Christopher Rowell, and Robert Skelton, Treasures from India: The Clive Collection at Powis Castle, London, 1987 2004 Satyanarayana: A Satyanarayana ‘Review: The Mysore Sultans. State and Diplomacy under Tipu Sultan: Documents and Essays by Irfan Habib’ Economic and Political Weekly 39 24 (2004) 2019 Dalrymple: W Dalrymple, The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company, Bloomsbury 2019 2018 Finn: Margot Finn, ‘Material Turns in British History I: Loot’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol. 28, December 2018 Kisluk-Grosheide 2018: Danielle Kisluk-Grosheide and Bertrand Rondot (eds.), Visitors to Versailles: From Louis XIV to the French Revolution (exh. cat.), New York: the Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven and London:Yale University Press, 2018.