Large Vegetable Dish With Chinese Decoration Ferrat Moustiers, Louis XV Period

MOUSTIERS FAIENCE 18th century, Chinese low-fire decoration, FERRAT factory (1761-1842)

Superb covered soup tureen or vegetable dish with a scalloped shape.
The low-fire decoration involves 2 successive firings; the first of the enamel white and a second at a lower temperature for the decorations. This technique allows the choice of pieces in enamel white with little or no defect in the enamel background and a wider range of colors for the decorations.

We will also highlight here the influence of the artist Jean-Baptiste PILLEMENT on all decorative arts during the Louis XV period: ceramics, painting, goldsmithing, textiles, etc...  We find here both the artist's favorite themes, the representation of Chinese characters with a slender silhouette, perched on plant terraces, as if suspended in the sky, pagodas similar to very simple and aerial huts, etc.
Rich decoration with Chinese people represented as always in playful and pleasurable activities: games with children, music, dance... This idealized representation of a Chinese civilization, curious and distant, attractive and fantasized, recounted by the writings of travelers, traders and Jesuits who traveled in the Orient and Asia (the best known is of course the Book of Wonders by Marco POLO)

Condition:
Only small chips and enamel jumps on the edge of the lid are to be noted, no felting or restoration. No wear as sometimes seen on the pink keypads.
Very nice, bright and shiny enamel. The outline of the lid is underlined by 2 successive lines giving even more relief and richness to the shape of the very worked platter, just like the very beautiful pear-shaped fretel, accompanied by its stem and leaves.
The scalloped and mannerist form is still typical of the decorative arts under Louis XV, inspired in particular by the shapes of ceremonial silverware dishes.

Dimensions:
34 cm long and 26 cm wide, 20 cm height

Superb decorative element of Table ware, representative of the creativity and influence of French artists of the 18th century, but also of the emulation and interaction of artistic disciplines between them. The idealization of Chinese civilization (in the broad sense) is as much an avowed taste for the curious and the exotic as a latent and budding questioning of the socio-political model of the Monarchy and the order of the Ancien Régime.