Pair of earthenware vases from Sarreguemines, “Duplessis” model dated 1904

Some pieces of earthenware are exceptional for their rarity, their execution or their size. These two vases bring together these three singularities: the rarity of this complete set, pedestals included, the remarkable quality of their execution in a characteristic creamy white, and their truly monumental size.

These two raised vases measure 220 cm in height – pedestals included – for a width and a depth of 70 cm. Tour de force of an envied French craftsmanship, this earthenware masterpiece comes from Sarreguemines.

The number “1906” corresponds to the number of the form. Here, the Duplessis model.
The number “227” corresponds to the dough number.
The numbers “11” and “04” correspond respectively to the month and year of creation, i.e. November 1904.
As for the letters “KK”, they refer to the shaper of the piece.

This pair of vases and their pedestals were therefore made of Sarreguemines earthenware in November 1904, conforming to the design of the Duplessis model. A name which, of course, was not chosen at random.

Our pair of vases is the result of this reflection mixed with a later creation which does not forget the teachings of the goldsmith of the reign of Louis XV. This shape of vase takes its name from Duplessis because it was he who imagined the shape.

Now part of the decorative vocabulary, the Duplessis form yields to many variations although it retains the characteristic movement given by the famous ornamentalist. Thus, the rococo style – which was the field of experimentation of this unique designer – is here reworked, as an evocation or even a tribute to the rococo style which had been forgotten for a while.

The 19th and 20th centuries have in common to have experienced a wide variety of novelties in the field of decorative arts. Fashions and curiosities have flourished there. In the second half of the 19th century, while Japonism and then the vegetal forms of Art Nouveau sketched out a whole new modernity, a taste for traditional forms remained. At the beginning of the 1890s, the taste for asymmetry, curves and fantasy reappeared in two forms: that of Art Nouveau and that, nostalgic, of the rock forms of the previous century.

With regard to this last aspect of the taste of our ancestors, the Sarreguemines factory bears masterly witness to this return to the classic forms of the decorative arts of the Ancien Régime. Certainly, this period is somewhat fantasized: one readily imagines it as an idyllic parenthesis like the paintings of Watteau and Boucher. The productions of the rock taste are meant to be graceful and refined. The catalog of the manufacture thus offers several objects of this style without however ever using the term “rocaille” or “rococo”, preferring names reminiscent of the former monarch.

Thus, we find forms “Louis XV”, “Pompadour”, “du Barry” and of course “Duplessis”. This last form was created in 1878 and was presented by the manufacture at the Universal Exhibition of the same year in the ceramic section.