Centerpiece; France, c. 1900

Centerpiece; France, c. 1900
Glazed porcelain; bronze
Measurements: 29 x 40 x 18 cm.

Glazed porcelain centerpiece with gilded bronze mounts, in the Sèvres style. The bowl, with a hemispherical profile, is decorated on a garnet-red background that frames a large, cut-out front panel depicting a romantic scene of a couple in the countryside. The bronze handles feature a design of large vegetal volutes that emerge from the rim itself. The piece rests on a balustraded porcelain shaft, which in turn rests on a bronze base with a rocaille profile and openwork scrollwork.

The garnet-red background, along with sky blue, pink, or cobalt blue, was part of the color palette developed by the Sèvres manufactory throughout the 18th century for its most luxurious pieces, serving as a backdrop for pictorial scenes with romantic or pastoral themes inspired by painters such as Boucher, Fragonard, or Watteau. This type of composition was widely reproduced during the 19th century by numerous European decorative porcelain workshops, which combined this decoration with Rococo-style bronze mounts, as seen in this piece, intended to appeal to the bourgeois taste for 18th-century-inspired decorative objects.