An Anti-slavery Porcelain Group

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Notes

1. The present and former colleagues were Leela Meinertas and John Hardy, who purchased the figure group and sold it on to the V&A at the dealer’s price to the museum of £12,000. We are enormously indebted to them for their foresight and support. The group was catalogued by Christopher Maxwell and Susan Newell, to whom I would also like to extend my thanks.

2. For this and the following information from factory documents, see Musée Lambinet, Louis-Simon Boizot (1743–1809), p. 232. The other example was exhibited by John Whitehead Works of Art, Sèvres Porcelain Sculpture, pp. 66–8.

3. For the manufactory’s pricing in livres and assignats during the revolutionary period, see Peters, Sèvres Plates, p. 1075.

4. The price in francs suggests this dates from 1797 or later. Ibid., p. 1167.

5. Musée Lambinet, Louis-Simon Boizot (1743–1809), p. 232, where the date of publication is given as “about November 1793,” which makes it predate the National Convention’s declaration of February 1794 by some months.

6. Ibid., p. 233 illustrates the figure group, also made in 1794. Both the group and the engravings show the couple wearing the symbols of Liberty, Equality and Justice. The prints, titled “Moi Libre aussi,” were engraved by Louis Darcis. Impressions of these and the other engravings cited in the text and notes are in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

7. Both titled “La Nature.” One was engraved by Louis Darcis in 1794 and the other by Jean-Baptiste Gautier in 1793–4.

8. Engraved by Alexandre Clément, probably 1792–3.

9. Boizot is documented as designing some of the wares for this service (Musée Lambinet, Louis-Simon Boizot (1743–1809), pp. 269–71; Schwartz, The Sèvres Porcelain Service; and some authorities attribute the jatte téton to him.

10. Engraved by I.-S.-H. Helman after Charles Monnet, “l’an 4” (1796).

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Notes on contributors

Hilary Young

Hilary Young – a veteran of five V&A departments and seven major gallery projects, and now retired – was a member of the Europe Galleries Concept Team and a Senior Curator in the Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass Department. He has published widely on European ceramics, silver, and design. His major publications include The Genius of Wedgwood (1995), English Porcelain, 1745–95 (1999), Masterpieces of World Ceramics (2008), British Ceramic Design, 1600–2002 (2002), Elegant Eating (2002), and The Arts of Living, Europe 1600–1815 (2015).