A Rare Plate 'Cantal' from the 'Service des Départements

Sèvres. 1827. Porcelain, cream-colored ground, colored overglaze decoration, sepia camaieu and cameo painting, etched gilding. Diam. 23,6 cm. Signed Lebel in the lower image field, blue stamp CC with fleur-de-lys above Sèvres 27, green painter's mark R 177.bre 24 G., gold Vd 4 A.l, incised letters and numbers. Due to age very minimal losses of colour and gilding. In a cobalt blue frame with golden leaf branches by Nicolas-Antoine Le Bel, a finely painted and labeled view of Saint-Flour in the Cantal department. On the banner, six medallions between floral festoons and camaieu green motifs of crafts: three inscribed cameo portraits of the astronomer Jean Chappe d'Auteroche, the playwright and actor Pierre-Laurent Buirette de Belloy, and Pope Sylvester II, as well as three inscribed medallions. On the reverse is a list of the “personnages célèbres,” the garland motifs, and craftsmen's attributes. The “Service des Départements” was designed in 1824 by Alexandre Brongiart, director of the Sèvres manufactory, on the occasion of the coronation of Charles X. However, after its completion, neither Charles X nor his successor Louis-Philippe showed any interest in acquiring the service. Most of the pieces in this dessert service have been in the French Foreign Ministry since 1852, with some plates in the possession of the Musée national de la Céramique, the Musée des Arts décoratifs, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and a few in private collections. - Literature: Samuel Wittwer (ed.). Raffinesse & Eleganz. München, 2007, pp. 334