HALF-BOTTLE BUCKET FROM THE "À PERLES ET BARBEAUX" SERVICE FOR THE TABLE OF QUEEN MARIE-ANTOINETTE AT TRIANON. Manufacture Royale, Sèvres, 1781-1782. In soft-paste porcelain, with polychrome decoration of barbel motifs, underlined by two rows of pearls painted on a green background band, framed by gold fillets. The decoration on this bucket has a variation of floral motifs. Restorations, slight age wear to the gilding in places, but overall good condition. Mark: LL interlaced in blue (faded). Painter's mark: B9 (probably Louis-Thomas Bauquer), active from 1774 to 1795. Height: 16.6 cm - Diameter: 18.5 cm. History: Between 1781 and 1784, Queen Marie-Antoinette commissioned four services from the Royal Sèvres Manufactory for her personal use. The service "à Perles et Barbeaux" ("barbeau" is the old name for the cornflower), the Queen's favourite flower, was ordered on 21 April 1781 and delivered on 2 January 1782, comprising 295 pieces for twenty-four guests, as was customary in 18th-century French service. The decoration of the pieces began in November 1781 and was completed by the end of the year. Such diligence required the best craftsmen of the manufactory, twenty-eight painters and several gilders, which explains certain variations and artistic interpretations in the motifs and barbeaux flowers, as is the case on the two pieces we are presenting. Our two half-bottle coolers come from the order delivered to the Queen on 2 January 1782. They were sold for 132 livres each (see the page of the order book opposite, ref: Vy8, folio, page 144). According to this order, there were four of them. This service is a masterpiece of the Sèvres manufactory, known as the "Queen's service", and was never made again for other customers of the manufactory. According to Bertrand Rondot, "the sovereign made her choice from two sample plates submitted to her by the painter Michel-Gabriel Commelin (1746-1802)". After the French Revolution, much of this service was scattered around the world, notably in private collections such as those of Lord Revelstoke, Baroness Ephrussi de Rothschild, the Duc de Cossé-Brissac, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and the family of the current Duc d'Uzès. Today, some of the pieces are in museums in France (Versailles, Louvre) and the UK (Victoria and Albert Museum). But since the dation of a set of 75 pieces made by the descendants of the former President of the French Republic, in addition to the 15 pieces already in the collections of the Château de Versailles. The Petit Trianon now owns 90 pieces from this service. Provenance: Collection of Queen Marie-Antoinette (1755-1793). Collection of the House of Crussol, preserved since by direct descent to the current Duc d'Uzès.