BLUE INTERLACED L'S ENCLOSING DATE LETTER QQ FOR 1793, PAINTER'S MARK FOR CASTEL TO THE CUPS, 28 AND 37 INCISED TO ONE CUP, 37 TO THE OTHER CUP, 38 TO ONE SAUCER

The present pair of cups and saucers are from a service ordered by the Russian ambassador to Versailles, Prince Ivan Sergeevich Bariantinskii (1773-85). One of only two armorial services commissioned from the Sèvres factory during the French Revolution, where a premium for such pieces was necessarily set from abroad, the service consisted of twenty-four cups and saucers. The original order is recorded in the sale archives at Sèvres as 'Un service fond bleu cleste, armoiries (Mme. Cresp Saint Petersbourg, 18.384 L(ivres). The service itself was delivered to Prince Bariantinskii in 1794. Clearly pleased, the Prince would later serve as a liason for the commission of Catherine the Great's own celebrated service.

See A Taste for Splendor: Treasure from the Hillwood Museum, pg.168, pl. 74 for an illustration and further discussion of the service; Chavagnac and Grollier, Histoire des manufactures française de porcelaine, Paris, 1906, p. 222.

Philippe Castel, active at Sèvres as a painter of flowers, birds and landscapes, 1771-97.