Baluster vase; Sèvres, France, 19th century.

Baluster vase; Sèvres, France, 19th century.
Glazed and partially gilded ceramic with bronze mounts.
Signed Eugene Carelle.
It has marks.
Measurements: 100 x 25 cm.
Baluster vase made of glazed ceramic with high and low temperature colors, including gold, with gilded bronze mounts on the base and lid. Aesthetically the work follows the model of the Sèvres colored backgrounds. The central cartouche image that occupies the entire body of the vase, starring a young woman accompanied by several little love birds, stands out. Although the front area presents the figures and the back is left for a landscape devoid of characters in this case the scenes are not divided into cartouches as usual, but merge into each other.
Originally founded in Vincennes in 1740, the National Manufactory of Sèvres was moved to this location in 1756. One of the leading European porcelain factories, the Manufacture was successively named after different political regimes: royal, imperial and national manufactory. Still in activity today, the firm continues to edit the objects created since 1740, although its current production is largely oriented towards contemporary creation. The Manufacture de Vincennes was founded with the support of Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour, with the idea of creating pieces for the court and to compete with the porcelain productions of Meissen and Chantilly. In fact, the first experiments were carried out by the brothers Robert and Gilles Dubois, who came from the manufacture of Chantilly. Important results were obtained as early as 1745, under the direction of the Gravant couple, especially the creation of models of porcelain flowers to decorate all kinds of pieces. The new building in Sèvres, where the manufacture moved in 1756, was built on the initiative of Madame de Pompadur. Three years later, it was named a royal factory, and from that moment on it would use fine gold, the only one with this privilege in all of France. In its early years the factory produced mainly soft paste; hard porcelain, with kaolin, was not marketed in Sèvres until 1770. Among the innovations of this manufacture, in the 18th century, were colored backgrounds and the use of biscuit for small sculptures. During the French Revolution, the factory suffered a decrease in production, but experienced a resurgence between 1800 and 1847 thanks to the direction of Alexandre Brongniart, who gave the factory international fame. During these years, many important technical innovations were made, and several contemporary artists collaborated with the manufacture. At this time, a new gilding was introduced, which was made shiny by burnishing the surface with an agate stone. The pieces were also decorated with opaque gilding, which was done by rubbing the gold with very fine sand. It was at this time that a cartouche became established for ornamental vases as a central theme, in the manner of an oil painting, with gilded cartouche on a monochrome background. From the mid-19th century onwards, the dominant styles will be eclecticism and historicism, and some models will recover typologies of the past, such as the mannerism of Fontainebleau and the baroque of Versailles. This period also saw the addition of new colored backgrounds, grays, yellows and browns, the "chameleon paste", gray in natural light and red under artificial light, and the "pâte-sur-pâte" technique, with several layers of biscuit porcelain.