Sèvres pot-pourri vase in the shape of a ship

Among the largest vessels produced by the factory, these vases were extremely difficult to fire; the multiple openwork piercings in the body weakened the overall structure, and they tended to collapse in the kiln.

[2] The shape derives from the nef, a table decoration in the form of a ship, usually of precious metals, used since medieval times.

At Sèvres the shape evolved from a vase with no lid, the cuvette à masques, produced from 1754 (earliest example, at Houghton Hall), and the shape of the pot pourri à vaisseau was also used in an adaptation as a lidded tureen with a stand, the terrine gondole from at least 1757 (two in the Hofburg Palace in Vienna), and a different pot pourri gondole.

The shape was copied, usually in somewhat simplified form, by some other manufacturers, notably the English firm Mintons, who were commissioned to make a replica by Georgina Ward, Countess of Dudley, when her husband sold his original in the 1880s; this is the example now in the Getty Museum.

Waddesdon Manor was built in the 1880s by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, a keen collector of French decorative arts.

He acquired it from the dealer Alexander Barker and it was said that the vase had been a gift to an ancestor of the Prince of Salerno by Louis XV.

[5] The front panel shows a battle scene, while the back is decorated with flowers, possibly by Jean-Louis Morin.

[6] Waddesdon's second ship vase has a dark blue ground colour with caillouté decoration, trellis-work and scrolls in gold.

With an overall dimension of 44.8 × 37.5 cm it was gifted by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in 1958, and is believed to be the vase in the ownership of Louis-Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé (where it formed a garniture with two of the famous elephant-head vases) and passed down after the French Revolution to Sir Charles Mills, Baronet and eventually to the Lords Hillingdon (in 1888).

[15] Acquired by George IV, the vase in the Royal Collection is the largest of the three models of this shape produced at Sèvres, and is decorated with two ground colours, green and dark blue.

The front reserve depicts a genre scene taken from an unknown source, inspired by David Teniers the Younger (1610–90).

The ends of the vase are in the form of a bowsprit, projecting from the jaws of a marine head, and at the masthead is a fluttering white pennant, patterned with fleurs-de-lis.

Madame de Pompadour is known to have owned at least three examples of this model (including those now in the Louvre and Royal Collection); these formed important components of her sumptuously appointed apartments.

[16] Acquired by Richard Seymour-Conway, the 4th Marquess of Hertford, by 1865, and possibly from the collection of Marie-Gabriel-Florens-Auguste, comte de Choiseul, known as Choiseul-Gouffier, this is the third of the ship-shaped vases designed by Jean-Claude Duplessis père (active 1748–74) in the 1750s.

The naval theme is emphasised by the faceted bowsprits in the mouths of the marine masks and is a reminder that at this time the French navy was involved in the Seven Years' War (1756–63).

Sèvres Manufactory vaisseau à mat pot-pourri vase in the shape of a masted ship (one of a set of three), ca.