Covered Bowl With Handles “in The Louis XV Style”, Sèvres Manufactory, Work Of The Second Empire

An elegant covered hard-paste porcelain bowl, resting on a shaped foot and fitted with two rocaille handles.
The whole is adorned with a sumptuous sky-blue decoration, enhanced by rich gilt cartouches in relief, within which unfold large, hand-painted floral bouquets.
Each cartouche presents a different composition, testifying to the skill of the Sèvres flower painters of the 19th century.
The lid, also shaped, is decorated with two matching cartouches and a very refined scattering of small, slightly raised gilt discs.
The foliate finial, modeled in the Louis XV style, completes this exceptionally well-executed piece.
Beneath the base is the mark of two interlaced L, used at Sèvres in the 19th century for pieces executed in the 18th-century style, in accordance with the historicist tradition of the Second Empire.
The shape, the gilt medallions, and the decorative vocabulary clearly place this piece among the luxurious creations produced by the Manufacture around 1855–1870, inspired by the grand models of the Louis XV era but reinterpreted with the opulence characteristic of Napoleon III.

Dimensions:
– Diameter: 14 cm
– Height of the bowl: 5.5 cm
– Total height with lid: 10 cm

Condition: Excellent overall condition, no cracks, no fading of the hand-painted decoration, no crazing or stains. The gilding is very well preserved, except on the inner rim of the bowl, and therefore not visible when the piece is displayed. Three medallions have lost their central gilt bead, and there are two small losses of celadon blue, each a few millimetres wide, on the upper border of the bowl. See photos.

A rare decorative piece, of great technical richness and typical of the sumptuous aesthetic of the Second Empire, a period during which Sèvres brilliantly renewed Rococo art, giving it a new vitality.