Plates from a Sèvres service, c.1806-08, £18,000 at Lockdales.
The 9½in (24cm) plates, which had a brief description as being Sèvres cabinet plates, each signed ‘de Sèvres’, decorated with Greek Gods, came with a £150-200 estimate but bidding went much higher. A week before the sale date, online pre-sale bids on thesaleroom.com had reached £18,000 (plus 19.5% buyer’s premium), which ended up as the final hammer price.
Sèvres plates with the same decoration of classical figures painted in brown on a marbled ground, but with gilded palmette and acanthus borders rather than the scroll and flowerhead motifs on Lockdales’ group, have come up for sale elsewhere.
They are from a Sèvres service dating from c.1806-08 described in the factory records as “a service de dessert sur fond beau bleu figures en brun rehaussées en or sur fond caillouté”. The classical figures were painted by Pierre-André Le Guay.
In January 2020 Sotheby’s sold a group of four plates from the ‘fond beau bleu figures en brun’ service for £15,000 while Bonhams sold a single example in October 2021 for £6000.
