Getty Museum

Pair of Lidded Vases (vases à têtes de bouc)

Date

about 1768

Medium

Soft paste porcelain, beau bleu ground color and gilding

Culture

French

Department

Decorative Arts

Institution

Getty Museum

Documents in the Sèvres porcelain manufactory archives call these vessels *vases à têtes de bouc* ("goat's head" vases), after their elaborate handles modeled in the form of rams' heads with grape vines hanging from their mouths. Despite their removable stoppers, these vases were purely decorative objects, serving no practical purpose. The distinctive decoration of bold patterns in gilding over a dark blue ground is typical of a style popular in the 1760s. The Sèvres manufactory only introduced this deep blue glaze, known first as *bleu nouveau* (new blue) then *beau bleu* (beautiful blue), in 1763.

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