Sèvres

There was plenty of choice for ceramics collectors at the Krehbiel collection sale.

Anthony du Boulay (1929-2022) was well known as an expert on Chinese ceramics, although his interests were more wide ranging.

The Adam Partridge (25% buyer’s premium) sale in Macclesfield on March 2 included a tazza from an important historical Sèvres service.

Only two examples of this 11in (28cm) Sèvres biscuit porcelain bust of Napoleon’s son, Napoléon-François-Charles-Joseph Bonaparte (1811-32), are known.

The Nicolier family were long-established antiques dealers who were based on the Quai Voltaire on the Parisian left bank for many decades.

A remarkable Sèvres part tea service made to mark the recovery of George III from illness in 1789 was among the unheralded highlights of this year’s London sales season.

Plates from a documented mid-19th century Sèvres dessert set sold for £36,000 at Golding Young & Mawer in Grantham on April 6.

Dessert plate taken to St Helena exile by Napoleon demonstrates provenance value

While the kilns at Sèvres languished during the Revolution, Napoleon recognised the value of a national porcelain factory and used it as an extension of his power.

Estimated at £200-300 in the belief they were later copies, a pair of Sèvres dishes sold for £9500 at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium).

This 15in (37cm) Sèvres porcelain presentation tazza or ‘Coupe Cybele’ was made for the Paris Exposition 1878.

Range of Sèvres highlights from ancien regime to the empire periods sold in UK auctions

A Sèvres cabaret service painted with portraits of famous women was a New Year’s gift from a French empress

Woman excluded from the guild of artists was nevertheless highly rated by kings and emperor

This 9¼in (23.5cm) diameter Sèvres porcelain plate is painted en grisaille with a portrait of the artist Annibale Carracci within borders of chrome green and gilt laurel and oak leaves, fleur de lys, palmettes and florets.

Osenat is holding one of its periodic sales titled L’Empire à Fontainbleau in its Fontainebleau saleroom on March 22.

The auction firm Peschetau-Badin (22.5% buyer’s premium) is known for holding dedicated ceramics sales and offered a two-day auction of European ceramics.

Pre-emption, the right of a French museum or institution to step in at the fall of the gavel to claim a lot at auctions staged in France for purchase at the hammer price, is a common occurence in such sales.

Edward Haughey, Baron Ballyedmond (1944-2014) – the founder of the Norbrook pharmaceutical group in Northern Ireland – proved just as influential in the world of politics as he was in business.