The royal porcelain factory on the outskirts of Paris has been producing beautiful works of breakable art for nearly three centuries. Because a New Orleans collector took special interest in a specific period of the factory\u2019s output, 75 pieces made for France\u2019s doomed royal family between 1758 and 1766 are now on view in \u201cS\u00e8vres Magnifique: French Porcelain from the Collection of Thomas B. Lemann\u201d at the New Orleans Museum of Art.<\/p>\n
Founded in 1740 in Vincennes, the factory moved in 1756 to be closer to Versailles and its fancy residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis little factory, which was modest in the beginning, became such an emblem of France that it caught the attention and the patronage of the royals,\u201d said Mel Buchanan, NOMA\u2019s RosaMary Curator of Decorative Arts & Design. \u201cSo, it was King Louis XV who became a patron of the factory, or, well, more directly his mistress, Madame de Pompadour.\u201d<\/p>\n
The trays, tea sets, plates and bowls in the exhibit beloved by the pre-guillotine set somehow survived the French Revolution, as did the factory, which still operates today. Many of those who ostensibly handled the objects\u00a0\u2014 including Marie Antoinette, or at least her servants\u00a0\u2014 did not.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese were used objects, but in a very rarified world of the elite in a court setting,\u201d Buchanan said. \u201cAll of these things would have had a place and been part of that ceremony of daily life at the court.\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer is on the back<\/p>\n
Some of the exhibit pieces are mounted so visitors can see their undersides, where various markings identify the factory, and sometimes the artist, that painted the piece.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you turn over ceramics, as I sometimes joke, the answer is on the back,\u201d Buchanan said.<\/p>\n
Because of these marks and the meticulous records kept by the factory, it\u2019s possible, a few centuries later, to credit the proletariat painters and gilders in exhibit text accompanying the porcelain.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, each individual painter\u00a0\u2014 which were some of the best artists of their generation worldwide\u00a0\u2014 had the privilege of marking their piece,\u201d Buchanan said. \u201cIn a factory setting, that’s pretty rare. Generally in a factory setting, it\u2019s the factory that gets the credit or maybe the original designer. It’s very rare that the individual artists get to claim ownership of the piece.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is an archive at the S\u00e8vres factory today that you can go visit. If you make the appointment and request the right materials, you can be looking at the pay schedules for a gilder that worked in the 1760s. It’s really extraordinary. Incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, thank you, 18th-century cake-eating annotators of S\u00e8vres, from curators of the present and future.<\/p>\n
The documentation was part of the appeal to Lemann, Buchanan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a historian, I imagine he was possibly attracted to S\u00e8vres because they were their own historians,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Important to Lemann as well was that the pieces be in pristine shape.<\/p>\n
\u201cCondition was very important,\u201d Buchanan said. \u201cSome collectors are not as concerned with something having a little ding or a little repair. Tommy Lemann wanted everything to be perfect, which is wonderful for a museum because we feel the same way, to have pristine examples.\u201d<\/p>\n
From Versailles to City Park<\/p>\n
The delicate porcelain\u2019s journey into NOMA\u2019s permanent collection spanned several decades. It\u2019s been on display at the museum a few times, dating back to the 1980s, but always anonymously. Lemann died in 2023 at age 97, and the collection was donated to the museum.<\/p>\n
His story, well-known to a certain vintage of locals<\/a>, is worth pondering as you enjoy his gift of the royal platters, etc., to his fellow citizens.<\/p>\n A New Orleans native, he served in World War II and was a Harvard Law graduate thereafter. There are YouTube videos of him reciting, late in life and in Greek, the poetry of Alcaeus and Homer.<\/p>\n \u201cOften when we talk about Tommy Lemann, I always use a shortcut to describe maybe how his mind worked: He was a codebreaker during the Second World War,\u201d Buchanan said. \u201cHe made his career as a lawyer (but) he lived a life of the mind, operating on a level that \u2026 most of us struggle just to keep up. He was a voracious reader, traveler and deeply knowledgeable about all parts of history and art.\u201d<\/p>\n The exhibit will remain on view through Jan. 3, 2027.<\/p>\n Museum calendar for July 5<\/p>\n\n