Covered Broth Bowl and Stand

Many years ago, I trained to be a potter. My tastes have always gone to objects that really speak to the clay-ness of the material. But I find that as I walk by this object on almost a daily basis, it stops me in my tracks every time. This covered bowl and stand was made in France in the middle years of the eighteenth century. This bowl would have been used for the serving of a broth consumed in the morning. It’s very likely this would have been served to a woman at her dressing table as part of the toilette--the highly ritualized grooming process that took place on a daily basis, which often could last for several hours. The cover allowed the contents to be kept warm. The two handles on the side allowed the broth to be sipped and bread could be placed next to it. There are numerous vignettes of fish intended to allude to the contents inside. There’s an enormous lobster that’s walking on dry land. There’s a series of fish, some of which that look like sturgeon, contained within enormous scallop shells, and they look real, but they also look like creatures from another planet. The fish seem to stare back at the viewer, and to have a sense of personality. There’s shading and highlights applied in gold. It’s so exaggerated by current standards of taste. The scenes are painted with enamel colors prior to the firing. There was enormous potential for disaster in the kiln. He or she did not know what the color was going to look like exactly. Believe it or not this is a relatively restrained early product of the Vincennes factory. And it's really an extraordinary accomplishment for this factory really just a handful of people who worked mostly in anonymity, but created works of art of extraordinary quality and originality. We don’t often think of pieces of porcelain, let alone porcelain from the eighteenth century, as great works of art. But I think for what this is, it’s as good as it gets.