SÈVRES, service du comte de Marcellus. - Lot 184

SÈVRES, service du comte de Marcellus. Suite of four circular dinner plates in polychrome porcelain with gold highlights. The background is decorated with antique-style cameo profiles on a cream background featuring Ancus Martius, Apollo, Homer and Romulus, surrounded by palmettes. Wing with frieze of laurels and flowers on pale blue background. Marked in blue and dated 1821. Restoration period. Diameter: 23.5 cm. (Slight wear). Provenance: French private collection. Our suite of plates is part of a dinner service initially composed of 72 plates with "pale blue background, colored ornaments, camayeux heads". Entering the Sèvres factory warehouse in December 1822, the set was delivered on March 25, 1826 "by order of Monsieur le vicomte de La Rochefoucauld dated March 14, to Monsieur le vicomte de Marcellus, envoyé extraordinaire, Ministre plénipotentiaire de Sa Majesté très Chrétienne, près Son Altesse royale le duc de Lucques". Close to Chateaubriand, friend of Ingres and son-in-law of Louis Auguste de Forbin, director of the Musée Royal du Louvre, Marie-Louis de Martin du Tyrac, vicomte de Marcellus (1795-1861), known as Lodoïs, led a brilliant diplomatic career as secretary to the French embassy in Constantinople. In 1820, he was entrusted with organizing the maritime shipment of the famous Venus de Milo, then offered to Louis XVIII by Charles de Riffardeau, Marquis de Rivière, French ambassador to Constantinople.