A royal porcelain manufactory.

In the eighteenth century European monarchs not only patronized the decorative arts but also owned workshops and factories that produced luxuries that furnished their royal residences and the houses of the nobility. Their patronage was certainly a matter of economics and national pride, but it also set aesthetic standards and established fashion trends. Louis XV of France is a case in point. The Sevres porcelain manufactory had its beginnings near Paris in the town of Vincennes in 1740. There, craftsmen made soft-paste porcelains in a variety of elegant and delicate styles with limited financial success. This changed when the factory was named manufacture du roi in 1753 and became so successful that it was moved to larger quarters in Sevres in 1756, and three years later it was purchased by the king. Concurrently, he and his mistress, the insatiable shopper Madame de Pompadour, stepped up their acquisitions of this fine porcelain.

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Since the eighteenth century, admirers have always regarded Sevres as one of the leading European porcelain manufactories, and pieces with any kind of royal provenance (in France and elsewhere) have always been held in the highest regard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has a particularly rich collection of Sevres porcelain, both freestanding objects and plaques set into extraordinary pieces of French furniture by the leading ebenistes of the period (see illustration at right). Some ninety pieces of Sevres drawn from the museum's holdings have been assembled for a special exhibition entitled A Taste for Opulence: Sevres Porcelain from the Collection. While the museum's most important pieces are always on view, they are scattered in various galleries and in the French period rooms, where they may not always be seen to best advantage. This exhibition provides a wonderful opportunity to study these porcelains at close range and grouped together. The show, which is made possible through the generosity of the David Berg Foundation, is ...