Enfilade

From the March 2010 issue of Apollo Magazine:

Geoffrey de Bellaigue, French Porcelain in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 3 volumes (London: The Royal Collection, 2009), 1291 pages, 2400 illustrations, ISBN 9781905686100, £500.

Reviewed by Selma Schwartz; Curator of Porcelain and Special Projects, Waddesdon Manor, The Rothschild Collection, Buckinghamshire, posting added 21 February 2010.

In the preface to his catalogue for the exhibition ‘Sèvres Porcelain from the Royal Collection,’ held at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, in 1979- 1980, Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue wrote that “eventually a catalogue raisonné will be published” and that the catalogue “represents, in a sense, an interim report on a selection of pieces.”

Now, 30 years later, and over 100 years after the publication of Sir Guy Francis Laking’s ‘Sèvres Porcelain of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle,’ we finally have the monumental three-volume work (1,291 pages, with 2,400 illustrations – nearly all in colour) that scholars, collectors and amateurs of Vincennes/Sèvres porcelain have been anticipating eagerly for such a long time and the likes of which will probably never be seen again. Expectation and curiosity about the publication have been heightened principally for two reasons. The first being that although Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace are open for public visits, a large quantity of the porcelain is not on display in public areas. The second is the renown that the author (or compiler, as he refers to himself in the text) rightly enjoys for meticulous and profound scholarly research.

The catalogue covers all the French porcelain in the Royal Collection, including that from Paris factories made in the 18th and 19th centuries, which, however, makes up only 37 of the 368 entries. Sèvres porcelain, as it was known after the manufactory moved to the town in 1756 from the château of Vincennes, is the star of the catalogue. The Royal Collection holds what is probably the finest and certainly the largest collection of this porcelain in the world, most of it acquired by that voracious collector George IV . . .

For the full review, click here»