Les Visiteurs d’ Été
(Summer Visitors)

The white biscuit porcelain and gres portrait-busts featured in this exhibition are very special 'visitors', culled directly from the archives of France's ancient royal porcelain manufactory, the Manufacture Nationale de Sevres. These rare and historic sculptures were conceived by various artists between 1768 and 1936, and produced by Sevres between 1897 and 2005. Depicted are kings, queens, emperors, American presidents, politicians, philosophers, poets, artists, scientists, figures from literature, and even France, herself.

Early on, the manufactory began to produce work primarily in biscuit, or white unglazed porcelain, both to distinguish itself from the emerging German manufactories producing glazed polychromatic pieces, as well as to more closely imitate the austere white coldness of the popular carved marbles from which many of the works derived.

This exhibition of forty-two busts will be on view through August 21st. All pieces are made available for sale.


Abraham Lincoln


Rene Descartes


Felix Faure


Flore


Napoleon Bonaparte