Sèvres and Vincennes Porcelain

This display of Sèvres and Vincennes porcelain celebrates a significant promised gift from Gustavo Seriñá to the Fine Arts Museums. Showing highly-decorated porcelain tea and dining wares, thirty pieces from this collection are from the early production of the French Royal Factory which was founded at Vincennes in 1740 and moved to Sèvres, just outside Paris, in 1756.  This presentation highlights the Museums’ growing collection and its ability to present new exhibitions and scholarship in the field of European eighteenth-century porcelain.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.

 Whether or not you go, Vincennes and Early Sèvres Porcelain reveals the history leading up to the glittering and colorful wares of the renowned royal Sèvres manufactory, prominently displayed in palaces and art galleries around the world. By contrast, the comparative delicacy and simplicity of the beautiful wares of the Vincennes porcelain works, out of which the Sèvres factory evolved, remain relatively unknown, even by porce­lain experts. Drawing from the V&A and Belvedere collections, which include rare early pieces of these two factories, the book traces virtually every step in the development of the first Vincennes manufactory in 1740, documenting its success in overcoming technical and artistic challenges and its rivalry with other European manufactories.

Vincennes and Early Sèvres Porcelain