45 Pair of Soup Plates Qianlong period circa 1737 French Market Diameter: 9 inches; 23cm A rare pair of Chinese porcelain dinner plates with brightly enamelled borders of pink and turquoise, the centre with a design of butterfly wings enclosing a grisaille bee, the rim with the accollée arms. The dexter arms are: Cardevac d’Havrincourt: d’hermines au chef de sable. (unicorn supporters). and sinister: Languet de Gergy, d’azur au triangle, cléché et renversé d’or, chargé de trois molettes d’éperon de geules, una à chaque pointe du triangle. This was ordered for the marriage, 10 June 1737, of Louis de Cardevac, marquis d’Havrincourt (17071767) and Atnoinette Barbonne Thérèse Languet de Gergy (d 1780). Both were well connected and from old families with strong ties to the Catholic Church. Louis was son of François-Dominique de Cardevac (1665-1747) and Anne-Gabrielle d’Osmond (d1762). Their marriage contract of 1705 was signed by Louis XIV. AnneGabrielle was taken under the wing of Madame de Maintenon, Louis XIV’s morganatic second Louis Cardevac wife. She wrote to Anne-Gabrielle after Gustaf Lundberg at the time of her marriage: (detail) “Enfin, ma chère fille, soyez un bonne chrétienne, une bonene femme, et une bonne mère, remplissez bien tous vos devoirs, établissez bien votre réputation, et priezpour moi.” In a later letter she advised: “Vous connaissez la cour, et vous n'en serez jamais engouée; Paris est pernicieux pour les femmes.” Significantly Louis de Cardevac was christened by François Fénelon (1651-1715) Archbishop of Cambrai, who had been tutor to the young Louis, Duke of Burgundy, the father of Louis XV. While working as Royal tutor Fénelon wrote the novel Les Aventures de Télémaque, which became a huge influence thoughout the eighteenth century. At least two illustrations from editions of the 1720s are known on Chinese export porcelain. Louis de Cardevac had a wide ranging military and diplomatic career, being Ambassador to Britain (1748), then Sweden and The Netherlands. Antoinette Languet de Gergy was the only daughter of Jacques-Vincent de Languet, comte de Gergy (1667-1734), who was French Ambassador to the the Republic of Venice and who features in a major painting
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by Canaletto. He was a patron of the composer Vivaldi. Antoinette had four uncles: two French Generals, one L’Abbé de St Sulpice and one was Archbishop of Sens. Her mother, Anne Henry, was book plate with arms of celebrated as a great Languet de Gergy beauty by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Louis & Antoinette had at least five children, two sons and three daughters, and he was succeeded by his eldest son Anne-Gabriel Pierre (b1739). During the revolutionary terror of 1793, the tombs of the d’Havrincourt church were ransacked and their bones thrown around. However Louis’ Antoinette Languet by embalmed body had been Rosalba Carriera (detail) removed just in time. On 20 February 1800, in the dead of night, his twenty-two year old grandson Anaclet-Henri, aided by an elderly family retainer, Pierre-Louis Lupart, secretly descended into the crypt of the ruined church and replaced the body in its tomb. It wasn’t until 1868 that the tombs were fully restored by the family. The medieval Château d’Havrincourt, near Calais, had been visited by Madame de Maintenon in 1719, but was burnt during the French revolution, rebuilt in 1880, and then destroyed by the Germans during the First World War. It was rebuilt again in 1928. This service was previously unrecorded and the design very closely resembles another well known and distinctive service made with the arms of Grimaldi. References: Notice Historique sur la Maison de Cardevac d’Havrincourt (1885) Cambrai: J Renaut; Chevreul, Hubert Michel Eugène (1907) Généalogie des branches de Gergy et de Sivry; famille Languet; Dijon: Imprimerie Jobard; Grimaldi examples: Cohen & Cohen 2002, p27, No 17; Howard 1994, p77, cat 59; Forbes 1982, p45, No 80; Alves et al 1998, p297, No 108;