A rare, museum quality piece: Silver gilt wash basin with the coat-of-arms of Madame Pompadour
Oval scalloped basin on a flat base, the tall corpus decorated with twist fluting and finely chased rose tendrils in low relief, which continue along the cast rim amid bows, ribbons and shells. The centre of the well emblazoned with the engraved coat-of-arms of the Marquise de Pompadour, three silver towers on blue ground, beneath a large margrave's crown. H 6; W 39.5; D 27.9 cm, weight 1,285 g.
Paris, marks of François-Thomas Germain, 1762.
Madame de Pompadour, whose full name was Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Dame Le Normant d'Étiolles, Marquise de Pompadour, Duchesse de Menars (b. December 29, 1721 in Paris; April 15, 1764 in Versailles), was certainly the most famous mistress and favourite of the French king Louis XV.
As the official matresse en titre, the first native-born commoner ever to have this status at the French court, the king elevated her to the rank of Marquise de Pompadour with her own country residence and coat of arms, shown here, in July 1745, just a few months after their first meeting. Shortly thereafter, on 14 September 1745, she was officially presented at the court of Versailles.
The Marquise was a discerning collector who loved and promoted the arts. Provided by the king with six palaces in total, she had an extensive collection of silver, none of which survives save for two mustard pots formed as small amoretti pushing mustard barrels in carts (today housed in the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon) and a solid gold coffee grinder in the Musée du Louvre (inv. no. OA11950). A substantial proportion of the court silver fell victim to the smelting campaign ordered by the King in 1759 in order to finance the Seven Years' War.
The inventory drawn up following the death of the Marquise in 1764 still contained no less than 315 kg of silver. This basin appears to have belonged to one of the two toilette sets mentioned in the inventory. These were comprised of the usual pitcher and basin and assortment of boxes for powder, beauty patches, and other items. The surviving lists provide insight into the volume of silver in Madame Pompadour's collection, but provides no mention of its appearance or the names of the goldsmiths commissioned for its production. The only names we know for certain are Antoine-Séastian Durant, who produced the two mustard pots, and Jean Ducrollay, maker of the coffee grinder in the Louvre. We know that François-Thomas Germain, court goldsmith to Louis XV, also counted his mistress among his distinguished patrons and that he produced several pairs of candelabra for her, of which sadly none have survived.
Literature
For the toilette service in the estate inventory of 1764 cf. Jean Cordey (ed.), Inventaire des biens de madame de Pompadour rédigé après son décès, Paris 1939. Cf. also Mabille, Madame de Pompadour und die Gold- und Silberschmiedekunst, in cat. Madame de Pompadour, L'Art et l'Amour, Munich 2002, p. 271 ff. For more on François-Thomas Germain cf. Hernmarck, The Art of the European Silversmith, London 1977, p. 110, and Frégnac, Les Grand Orfèvres de Louis XIII à Charles X, Lausanne 1965, p. 174 ff.