Sparkling Evening Talk - 'Sèvres and more at Upton House'

At the dawn of the eighteenth century the European fascination with porcelain became an obsession. Rulers set up porcelain factories that competed against each other to emulate and outdo the Chinese and Japanese. Through porcelain they pursued commercial success as much as prestige. Meissen, in Germany, and Sèvres, in France, achieved levels of refinement and technical prowess unsurpassed today.

First considered highly fashionable, eighteenth-century Sèvres porcelain followed the artistic trends from the 1750s to the 1800s, compelling buyers to spend extraordinary sums of money on vases and tableware. With the end of the Ancien Régime, collectors relished ‘old Sèvres’ as relics of the past, giving into the porcelain sickness that had struck Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour in the previous century.

In this talk, part of our programming theme of artists and their muses, Félix will share insights into the superb creations of the Sèvres porcelain manufactory drawing on exquisite examples from the Bearsted Collection at Upton House.

Félix Zorzo is Assistant Curator of European Decorative Arts at National Museums Scotland. He was previously Curatorial Assistant at the Wallace Collection and cover for the Curator of French Eighteenth-Century Decorative Arts. He is a committee member of the French Porcelain Society and co-convener of its Emerging Scholars Group and Editorial Board.

The evening starts with us welcoming you with a glass of fizz.