Cleveland Museum of Art

Footed Dish (soucoupe à pied)

Date

1786

Medium

soft-paste porcelain with enamel and gilt decoration

Culture

France, Sèvres

Department

Decorative Art and Design

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

These dishes may have supported cups of sweet ices or pyramidal displays of fruits or sweetmeats as part of a dessert or tea service. On the reverse of the plate the two birds pictured are identified as a Petit Perruche, du Pérou (budgerigar from Peru) and Harle huppé, Mâle (male red-breasted merganser.) Their images were modeled after engravings in naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc’s Natural History of Birds , a book which regularly inspired Sèvres porcelain paintings in the 1780s and 90s. The dark blue ground that rings the edge of this plate is known as beau bleu (beautiful blue) and derived its color from cobalt added to the enamel.

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