A SEVRES LOZENGE-SHAPED PIERCED BASKET TRAY (PLATEAU FORME DE CORBEILLE LOZANGE)

This form of tray is one of eight that were put into production in 1755, the other basket trays being round (in two sizes), square, oval, octagonal and triangular and one 15 pouces de long.1 The eight different trays were designed for the Louis XV bleu céleste service which was made and delivered to the king over the course of three years, from 1753 to 1755. The 31 December 1755 delivery to Louis XV contained four corbeilles lozanges at 480 livres each. This was the first occasion that they were sold by the factory and subsequently they were never a common item as the elaborately pierced borders meant they were difficult and expensive to produce. Documentary references to basket trays after 1755 are scarce as from this date on the shape of the tray is rarely designated. It appears that they were used more for déjeuners than for dessert services. Four Vincennes corbeilles lozanges from the Louis XV Service were sold in these Rooms on 12 June 1995, lots 389-392.

1. See Linda H. Roth and Clare Le Corbeiller, French Eighteenth-Century Porcelain at the Wadsworth Atheneum, The J. Pierpont Morgan Collection, Wadsworth, 2000, p. 193, note 14 where the author notes that it is unclear to what shape this last object refers.