All language subtitles for Beautiful Thing A Passion for Porcelain BBC 1080p EN SUB_Subtitles01.ENG

To many of us, French porcelain
is something we consider to be,

at best, kitsch,
and at worst, vulgar.

But behind the flowers, cherubs,
gilding and gloss,

is a hidden story
of the 18th century.

Sevres porcelain is the fusion
of art, industry,

and absolute monarchy,

all coming together to create
something exquisite.

Absolute perfection.

The colours are so vibrant.

You recognise a
Sevres piece across the room.

Sevres porcelain is a symbol of
immense power, money, and privilege.

They cost the equivalent
of millions of pounds

and represented
the pinnacle of human ingenuity.

They are fantasies about a material,
and that's the key thing.

You look at its skill,
its manufacture,

its sublime perfection,

but underneath, you sort of
want to smash it up.

First collected by the French court,

over the centuries they have been
passed through the hands

of rich collectors worldwide.

Dame Rosalind Savill,
a world authority,

is one of the few people actually
allowed to touch it.

It was such an explosion of genius.

All these pieces are extraordinary.

Now being filmed out of their cases
for the first time, in this film,

she will take us up close to some
of her favourite pieces of Sevres,

revealing the secrets
of their creation

and their incredible owners.

Former director of
the Wallace Collection,

Dame Rosalind Savill has devoted
her life to Sevres porcelain.

Objects that represent

the unbelievable skills
of 18th-century France,

as well as the desires and demands

of an autocratic regime
that was heading for revolution.

As valuable now as they were when
first produced, Sevres' intricacies

and opulence speak of wealth,
sophistication, and prestige.

They have always been
sought after by collectors,

eager to associate themselves
with Sevres' power.

Often people find it hard to
appreciate Sevres porcelain today,

because they see it as
over-elaborate, crudely coloured,

richly gilded, and
they can't really see

how it could ever have had a function
in the world for which it was made.

And yet,
all these pieces are extraordinary.

They are made for the glory
of France,

to celebrate the technical wizardry
that could be brought to bear

in making porcelain
in the 18th century.

People find it very, very difficult
to look now

at 18th-century porcelain,
18th-century furniture.

They kind of think it's bling,
it's over-the-top.

It's all too much.

We see Sevres through the
eyes of what it became,

in a very sort of kitsch world
of the 19th, 20th century.

So it's quite important to try and
see over that

and back into the 18th century

to see what was original,
and not kitsch about it at all.

I took my mother to
the Wallace Collection,

and she said to me,

"Oh, how can you work on this stuff?
It's so vulgar."

And it reminded me of how I felt
when I first looked at Sevres.

And I think you can't
empathise with Sevres.

It isn't something for which
we have a natural disposition.

It's something you have to
learn to like,

and you learn to like it

by understanding the conditions
in which it was made

and the people who bought it,
and what they saw in it.

When you get close to something, you
get an intimate relationship with it.

As a curator, you get the chance to
handle it, to wash it, even.

And gradually, a romance builds up

and you begin to imagine it
in the hands of the painter,

looked after by the patron,
used in a certain way,

and when you're able
to see it closely enough,

you begin to see how simple
each element of it is

and how beautiful
and enjoyable it can become.

When first seen by
16th-century Europeans,

porcelain was a thing of wonder.

But the Chinese closely guarded
the secrets of this recipe.

Experiments with porcelain
production

began in France
in the late 17th century.

However, it would
take decades for them

to perfect the material
and their skills.

In the 18th century, the French
king, Louis XV, was so intent

that France produced porcelain
superior to all other nations

that he financed and started up
his own factory.

He later passed a law

forbidding the production of
porcelain by anyone else.

In 1756, bankrolled by the King,

the factory moved to new premises
at Sevres.

Still open today,
this would be the site

of some of the most incredible
porcelain creations ever imagined.

The name would become synonymous
with French excellence in porcelain.

This magnificent ship is one of the
most iconic porcelain models

of the entire 18th century,

and this is technically superb.

If you can imagine, you're working
with a very difficult soft-paste

porcelain material which tends
to sag and crack in the kiln -

to get a piece like this to stand up
and survive is wonderful.

And I have to tell you
that handling it

is one of the most humbling
experiences.

And you fear for your life
you may damage it.

And remembering also that when pieces
like this were taken to the kiln,

they were taken often
on boards on the shoulder

and one boozy lunch and a trip
on a step, and you've had it.

The piece comes apart at this level

so that the rigging of the ship
is quite separate from the body

and the two would have been made
and fired separately,

each probably as many as ten times.

Because first, you'd have
worked on the paste,

then you'd have applied the wonderful
underglaze blue ground colour.

It's called bleu lapis.

And you'd have planned
exactly where

that would have gone on the
piece at that very early stage.

You'd then have glazed it,

then you'd have applied the overglaze
green ground colour,

then you would have painted the birds
and their landscapes,

and then finally, the gilding,

which on this piece
is absolutely extraordinary.

You have a sort of worm-tunnel
gilding over the blue ground.

You have crisscross
patterns around here

and further detailing, miraculously,
right through the rigging,

and finally, the fleur-de-lys
of France on the pennant at the top.

And blowing all the way down
across the rigging and the sails

and enhanced with little gilded
fleur-de-lys inside and out,

giving it its French
royal connections.

This is the first time it's been
taken out of a case

and filmed in this way,

and it really gives you the chance

to sort of get to know
funny little touches.

I adore this monster here.

He's got sort of rushes in his hair,
a very sad face

because his mouth is prised open
to hold this magnificent bowsprit.

And you've got his little gold teeth
shining at either side.

The whole thing is ingenious.

But it's also got the most
extraordinary function.

It was intended to be
a potpourri vase.

Ships such as this one made and sold
to an 18th-century French courtier

cost the equivalent of £58,000.

But its prestige wasn't
only about its value.

The ship design had a strong
symbolism that would have

been well understood.

In 1761, when this vase was made,

the French Navy was in
the middle of the Seven Years War.

This intricate design would have
sent out celebratory messages

of patriotism, power, and empire,
all from a salon mantelpiece.

We can take the lid off.

It's frightening, this!

And see how truly spectacular it is.

Just imagine cutting the paste
to give this fabulous effect

of sails and rigging and rope.

Think about firing it in the kiln.

How on earth you would support it

without it plunging into a sort of
lump at the bottom of the kiln?

And when you turn it over...

..it's just a beautiful abstract
piece of art in the middle. Fabulous.

Ten of these shapes were
made in the 18th century.

Enormously important with the court,
as you can imagine.

And there's a lovely story that
in England in the 19th century,

when Lady Dudley's husband had to
sell her example,

she was too embarrassed
to show her friends

that they'd fallen on hard times,

and Lord Dudley had to have the
English factory of Minton

make an exact replica for her

so that she wasn't embarrassed
in front of her friends

at losing her delicious piece
of Sevres porcelain.

When you look at
an amazing boat vase,

and you've got this galleon
with winds behind it

and this intricacy of the mast
and the rigging

and different grounds of colour

and you've got gilding,
and you've got everything going on,

you've also got someone
who's actually had a fantasy

about what porcelain can be.

The process of making porcelain
is close to alchemy.

It requires a mastery
of science and engineering,

the right recipe for
a very fine paste of clay,

and the correct combinations
of other minerals.

And then the kiln.

It must reach very high
temperatures.

Between 1,200-1,400 degrees Celsius
each and every time it's used.

Porcelain is the purest kind of clay

and it's got a sort of transcendent
whiteness to it.

It's got an aspirational quality.

It is the whitest thing on earth.

In fact, the first mix
made in France, called soft-paste,

wasn't a true porcelain.

It was made without the pure white
clay of the Chinese original,

called kaolin.

A classic hard mix paste of kaolin,
quartz and other minerals

took decades to discover.

But it was the soft-paste
that created the incredible

intensity of colour
for which Sevres is famous.

What people don't realise
about making pots

is they think a pot gets made,

gets glazed, gets fired,
and that's it.

But this is an enormous,
laborious process.

First, the pot gets made,
partly thrown,

partly made from moulds.

They are assembled, they are fired,
then they are glazed.

Every colour of enamel
that is used in a pot

fires at a different temperature,

so you have to fire enamel

that can withstand the highest
temperatures first

and work your way down.

And then the gilding is done
at the end, and at all the stages,

they can develop firing cracks,

they can have something wrong
with the glazing,

and a lot of pieces during
the making process are discarded.

I do look at Sevres as a piece of
art and as an industrial process.

It's the sum of the parts
that makes the art object.

In the early 18th century, a new
style called the Rococo emerged,

embellishing everything
with curves and curls.

It rejected the heavy pomposity
of the Baroque

in favour of lightness,
playfulness, pleasure.

It was perfect for exploring
the possibilities of porcelain.

With rococo,
the artificial could echo nature.

At its simplest with Sevres,

pressed lumps of clay imitate
delicate pearls of a specific flower

to be admired close-up.
An intimate pleasure.

And if you don't drop it,
an undying one.

Porcelain flowers,
fresh all year round for centuries.

The word "rococo"
comes from "rocaille",

meaning rocky or uneven ground.

It applies to the whole natural
world of woods and gardens,

trees, flowers, streams and shells.

The rococo took
the pleasure of nature indoors.

The rococo is defined by asymmetry,
because it has a tendency,

a disposition, to allow the design
to go out of control.

It allows for an element
of chance in design.

An element of idiosyncrasy,
if you like.

It's something that hasn't
appeared before,

isn't immediately recognisable.

And that gives it
a kind of semantic lightness,

because it's to some degree
meaningless.

So it's light on both fronts.
Witty, if you like.

The wit and frivolity of rococo
was a welcome contrast

to the authoritarian tone
of the French court.

The most powerful monarch
in Europe, Louis XV,

wasn't a light-hearted man.

So it would take someone he trusted

to slowly introduce him
the latest ideas of design.

That person was his mistress,
Madame de Pompadour.

She made it her job to provide
the King with pleasure

in every conceivable way.

A lover of the playful fun
of rococo,

she would go on to become
the impresario of Sevres.

Madame de Pompadour was
very, very well-connected,

and she was seen as
a sort of front woman

for a group of financiers
and political figures at court.

They realised that Louis XV was
sort of footloose and fancy-free.

People thought that he was actually
on the lookout for a new mistress,

so there is a sense that this group
planted Madame de Pompadour there.

She was exceptionally beautiful
at this stage in her life,

and she was always a very dynamic

and, at the same stage,
very seductive and charming person,

and it was a sort of
coup de foudre,

a love at first sight.

Almost straightaway,
she was in his bed.

The relationship was really
consolidated

at a tremendous ceremonial ball
that was held,

and again, the King was seen as the
available wallflower, if you like,

and famously went dressed
as a piece of yew tree hedging.

Although a number of his guards
also went in the same disguise,

and it was alleged
that numerous women

were throwing themselves in bushes,
literally, in the bushes,

only to find they were not
in the arms of the King,

but in the arms of
one of his soldiers.

But that was when their relationship
really got going.

Straightaway, people were saying,
"She is the new mistress."

I think she has a very acute
psychological sense

of what Louis XV is like,

and he's essentially
rather morose and melancholic,

and she realised this,
that she has to cheer him up.

She has to provide an endless show,
an endless performance,

which plays to his sense of pleasure
and pulls out of him a sense of fun,

which he frankly
doesn't have himself.

So she sees Louis XV as her project.

She has to provide an environment

in which he can feel
more of himself,

more happy in their relationship.

Madame de Pompadour was installed
into the rats' nest,

where a crowded colony of courtiers
lived in small rooms,

hidden away at the top
of the King's palace.

Her rooms were on
the north side of Versailles,

but a clandestine staircase

linked Louis XV's courtly rooms
to the warmth of her bed.

After a day of onerous
public duties,

night-time offered the King a climb
to somewhere more personal.

Somewhere designed for intimacy.

And Madame de Pompadour's rooms
were of course furnished

with all her favourite personal
porcelain objects.

Madame de Pompadour's dressing table
might have looked a bit like this,

though she would probably have had
a white muslin cover on the table

and a wonderful mirror
placed where I am

that was dressed also
in white muslin,

probably in front of the window
so she got really good light

when she sat at her dressing table
using her cosmetics.

In the French court
in the mid-18th century,

the toilette was
a daily public ceremony

when important women were dressed
and made up before an audience.

To create the right look,

they required hairdressers
to add hairpieces,

powdered white or even coloured.

Ornaments were also worn
in the hair, called pom-poms,

after Madame de Pompadour herself.

Make-up which marked someone
out as aristocratic

was heavy and artificial-looking.

Faces were painted shiny white
with lead-based make-up,

as well as the liberal use of rouge.

And then servants would of course
be needed

to help them get into
their corsets and dresses.

Because this was a very public event,

she would have wanted
beautiful objects

for each of the different potions
and lotions that she required.

And some of the ones that are here

may well have been exactly
what was on her table.

The lady would have had
boxes for hair powder.

Here's a wonderful one
where you can see the flowers

and the corn which was used
in the preparation of hair powder.

She would have had two, probably,

because they would each have had
different scents,

and this one is absolutely wonderful,

because you see a high-relief
meadow flower, the blue ribbon.

It's so special.

It was a big pot, because you had
a wide puff for your hair powder,

and then I love this bit.

When you open the lid,
it has a gold mount around the rim.

This is because you had to keep mites
out of your hair powder.

It had to be absolutely airtight,
because nothing would have

been more ghastly than putting
itchy mites all over your head.

So that was for hair powder.

Now, no self-respecting mite
would go near this pot,

because this was also for your hair,
but this was for pomade,

and it would have been
a very greasy substance

you would have applied
to your hair, so no gold mounts.

But you did need gold mounts
for this little piece.

This is a face patch box.

Face patches were made
of black velvet or taffeta,

and you stuck them
on your face using an animal glue.

Unfortunately, that was
just as popular with the mite,

and therefore you needed a gold mount

to protect your skin
from itching too.

Now, you had two brushes
in a service like this.

One, very obviously,
is the clothes brush.

Nothing particularly
unusual about this.

Long bristles, sturdy back to it.

But this is the real magic.
Look at this.

This is in fact a vergette,

and it was for dusting the wig
powder off your shoulders.

And it's the only one
we know in the world.

And because the toilette
took such a long time,

you needed certain foods
and drinks to be served to you.

You might have had a morning soup.

A clear consomme, served to you
in a special covered bowl like this.

You might also have been served tea,
coffee, or chocolate,

and you would have used a covered cup
and saucer like this.

And look how deep that saucer is.

Because if the drink was very hot,

you could pour the liquid into
the saucer, hold it in two hands,

and drink it like this

before putting it back on
your dressing table.

And all of this would have got
you sticky fingers,

so you had your equivalent
of a plumbed-in wash basin

with this beautiful jug and basin.

Not only has it a marvellous
shape for the warm water

that would have been put in there,
lid keep it hot,

look at that shell-shaped mount
to separate the lid

to make sure it doesn't get lost.

And look at the gilding
rock work and rococo waves,

which are matched in the basin
where you would have poured water

and then you could have
rinsed your hands with the water

splashing around these wave patterns.

And when not in use, they always sat
back in the middle like that.

So there you were, pampered
and perfumed, ready to face the day.

Madame de Pompadour
received a lot of courtiers

who came here to visit her in her
bedroom at her toilette table,

and she played music here.

They also played theatre
and, you know,

Madame de Pompadour was always
trying to occupy the King,

who was of a very
melancholic temper.

And she always tried to find new
sources of "amusements",

as we say in French.

But always very clever and nice
entertainments, I would say.

One of these "entertainments"

Madame de Pompadour used
to lighten the King's mood

was a clever visual trick.

A new kind of beauty,
astonishingly executed.

Madame de Pompadour filled vases
with porcelain flowers,

each a painstaking and
brilliant copy of the real thing.

She would change them regularly
and on a winter's day,

she even scented them

and placed them in the
King's conservatory to cheer him up.

Porcelain was always at the heart
of Madame de Pompadour's world.

And her love of filling rooms
with select furniture pieces

and personalised ornaments
neatly coincided

with the growing expectation
that all aristocratic homes

should contain a variety of objects.

What you get in the 18th century

is a sort of reduction
towards the domestic.

Still grand, still very beautiful,
it's still majestic in its way,

but it's more small-scale.

The 18th century sees a sort of
revolution in domestic objects.

Furnishings have broken down,
they've become more functional,

less multifunctional than
the objects of the past

and more attuned to the pleasures
and the conveniences
of everyday life.

Small apartments like
Madame de Pompadour's

needed objects that often
did more than one job.

And when you think how the important
novelty was,

a new gadget to startle
and amaze everybody,

this piece absolutely fits the bill.

It gives you two clues
as to what it was used for.

The painted decoration shows that it
was intended to be

a perfume burner, to make
a room smell glorious.

And the chicken on the top,

that it was actually used also
for steam-cooking an egg.

When you look at the painted
decoration, it's rather wonderful.

You have here flowers
from which you can make perfume,

and you can see a happy little cherub
sniffing the vaporised

perfume in the urn in his hands.

And the flowers are made
into the liquid perfumes

that you can see in these little
glass bottles,

a number of them fitted into a box,

and you would choose which perfume

you wanted your room to smell like
on that particular day.

And rather wonderfully,
the story is again repeated

but with a slight twist
on the section in the middle here.

Once again, you begin with
your flowers to make the perfume.

Then you have your little box of
unguents to pop into the urn.

There you have your urn
emitting lots of steam

and perfume for you to enjoy.

And if you're very lucky, it can
make you fall in love.

And there's the quiver
and the heart,

pierced through with the arrow.

An ingenious concoction,
beautifully illustrated.

Perfume was an important part
of 18th-century court life.

Indulging another of their senses,
it rose to an art form.

With this perfume burner,
the potpourri vases,

and the porcelain flowers,

Sevres intimately associated itself
with beautiful smells.

With Royal perfumiers employed
to create new and astounding aromas,

as this ingenious functional
and decorative object shows,

the French court once more
set itself apart

from the world of ordinary people.

And what of the chicken on the top?

It's said that Madame de Pompadour

kept special breeds of chickens
on the roof at Versailles,

and I love to think that
perhaps occasionally,

a egg would be popped
through her window

and she could have it
steam-cooked in her room,

perhaps on a day when
she wasn't very well,

or just as a surprise
for her friends.

Recently, a dealer in France
managed to find

some metal fittings
in an example like this,

and he proved that it took
three minutes to steam-cook an egg.

You put oil and a wick in
the little dish inside here.

Suspended above it was a metal tube
filled with water.

It had a cap with three hollow prongs

which projected into this
middle section here.

Your egg balanced on the top,

but three minutes later,
your delicious egg.

So in one tiny, strange-looking
object,

you suddenly get a marvellous sense
of how life was lived

at Versailles in the 18th century.

The magic of different objects
performing different roles

and all of them slightly zany
and quirky and exciting.

The object I really found charming
is the little egg warmer.

The little chicken with its cosy,

because it's something that is
actually for domestic use.

For very wealthy domestic use.

Maybe it wouldn't have existed if
it wasn't for the absolute monarchy.

And of course, you can't say,

"Oh, it's a good thing
there was absolute monarchy

"because it produced that."

But if that is a
by-product of absolute monarchy,

we are lucky to have it.

It's the same as religious paintings

are a by-product of religion.

Surprisingly for such
a playful style,

rococo played a serious part in
the function of the official court.

It might seem a contradiction
that an autocratic,

absolute monarchy would surround
itself with such a frivolous style.

But it was precisely
because of their wealth

and power that the 18th-century
French court

could indulge in the decoration
of rococo.

So, rococo Sevres, full of pleasure
and pretty decoration,

was on display
right at the heart of power.

Quite a lot of Sevres porcelain
is display-ware.

It's the way in which
the aristocracy, the monarchy,

make present their power,

even if it's cultural power
rather than political power.

It's a form of display, absolutely
intrinsic to their identity.

Porcelain's high value was only part
of what made it a symbol of power.

A fragile material,

it also had the flexibility
to withstand elaborate designs,

and unlike other works of art,
its vibrant colours never faded.

Porcelain, as a material,

is susceptible to expressions
of extraordinary power.

It's able to be used by the people
who see that

and realise that porcelain
can have an incredible effect

on their own countries and

on their own sense of
who they are as leaders.

And it symbolises
a sort of transcendence

beyond the everyday
common and garden object,

into something which is
completely different.

It's the sort of thing you show
to other people.

And that, again, fits in with what
we know about

the nature of court society
in the 18th century

and the very public,

overt theatricality that was going
on for the most part in Versailles.

The court is so colossal,
compared with anything else.

If you look at the site
plans at Versailles,

everything was focused on the King.

Wherever he moved,
he was followed by a retinue

every moment of the day.

It was the performance of majesty
in an almost theatrical way.

This meant that France had to be

the most distinguished,
the most civilised,

artistically, the most
cultivated power in Europe.

So we see from the 17th century,
the King was constantly supporting

those decorative arts
which would provide

the prestigious decor
of his everyday life.

Porcelain was becoming
the thing to own.

If the King was buying it
and displaying it,

any noble who wanted to be noticed

needed to have
their own pieces of Sevres.

Each client's desire
to own unique pieces

fuelled the artistic imagination
of the Sevres factory

and increased the variety
of possibilities for decoration.

Some people find it difficult,
actually, with 18th-century design.

That it seems very fussy,
or it seems very artificial.

But in rococo design,

you get pieces which are clearly
composed of parts,

and those parts are signalled
so that you know

that this is porcelain
that's been mounted up.

A huge amount of care is taken
in making sure that every element,

every surface that there is, has
been thought about, pre-planned.

Some kind of decoration has been
put on it or not put on it,

depending on the balance
of the piece.

No-one is trying to disguise
the fact that this is made

by a number of different artisans
and that these things are brought

together in one piece and there is
a real appreciation of the way in

which any given piece is the result
of collaboration between artisans.

In order to maintain its incredible
standards of craftsmanship

and excellence, Sevres had to make
sure that it trained

and kept the very best artists and
craftspeople working at the factory.

Some joined as artisans, rising
up to become respected artists.

Others, already artists in their own
right, were employed to bring

the very best of skills to Sevres.

Each and every one of them ensured
that Sevres was able to keep on

producing breathtaking objects,
year after year.

Many of the artists and designers
who worked at Sevres were

academicians, so in that sense, they
belonged to an artistic community.

They may have been producing
designs which were then

executed by artisans who were not
members of the Academy,

but there is that sense if you like
that the artistic idea is there.

And on occasion, Sevres was
exhibited at the Academy salons,

so it also is being shown alongside
painting and sculpture

as an object that's worthy of
the same kind of aesthetic
consideration.

At Sevres, the artistic director
was Jean-Claude Duplessis,

who invented and imagined
many of the most famous rococo

forms of Sevres, even perfecting
a special lathe to create

some of his innovative
signature styles.

Sevres' most sought-after painter
was Charles Nicolas Dodin.

He joined at 20 and with his talents
quickly recognised,

he was made a painter
of miniatures -

the most prestigious painting work
in the factory's hierarchy.

His perfect work graced services

for the King and
Madame De Pompadour.

Dodin worked at Sevres for 49 years,

becoming one of the factory's
highest-paid painters,

earning 100 livres a month -

almost ten times that
of the average worker.

The fine gilding of Sevres
was integral to its appeal.

A gilder called Le Guay, who,
despite losing an arm in battle,

was so respected that Madame De
Pompadour personally intervened

to get him out of the army
and back working at the factory.

Sevres' exceptional standards also
attracted established artists.

In 1757, the renowned sculptor
Falconet, already a celebrated

artist and academician, was taken on
as Sevres' director of sculpture.

Sevres was a powerhouse of talented
artists and craftspeople,

all devoted to constantly changing,

re-imagining and perfecting.

Now here we have one of the most

bizarrely brilliant vases
ever created in porcelain.

Duplessis, the great designer at
the factory, created a tour de force,

a technical piece of genius,

and you might well ask where on earth
did he get his crazy ideas from.

Well, it's thought that the bottle
shape was actually after a Chinese

prototype, and the feet are from
contemporary silverware in Paris.

But most bizarrely extravagant

and exciting are these extraordinary
elephants' heads on either side.

They and the neck of the vase too
appear to have been influenced

by the post-mortem
of an African elephant that was

published in Paris in 1755

and Duplessis was aware of this
publication and one thing noted

about the dead elephant was that

the tip of an elephant's trunk
was like the neck of a vase.

He's reversed the idea

and he's given us this extraordinary
elephant's-trunk neck.

He's extruded the heads
of the elephant and upturned

their trunks in a really crazy way

to support these pairs of
candleholders.

So from being a rather imaginative
design object, it gains

a function and a use
in the great rooms

in which it would have been
displayed.

The detailing of the decoration is
equally extravagant and exciting.

The green ground was a brand-new
colour in commercial terms

and here it has a particular
blue-ishy, turquoise tone,

very much a rococo colour.

It provides the outlines
for different

kinds of reserves of decoration.

If you look, the whole vase is
decorated to be seen in the round.

In the centre, you have fabulous
cherubs after Francois Boucher.

Boucher's drawings were
provided to the factory

and here you have wonderful cherubs
dressed in coloured drapery -

notice their little wings...

Holding torches
or bows and arrows

or garlands of flowers.

On many Sevres vases,
the reserves would be painted with

miniatures which reproduced
fashionable works of art.

The work of Francois Boucher,

the most celebrated rococo
artist of the day,

and a favourite with
Madame De Pompadour,

was regularly immortalised
on porcelain by Dodin.

Although these were reproductions,
to 18th-century eyes,

they were viewed as works of art
and were similarly prized.

Rather wonderful are the garlands
of flowers you see in the fluted

sides of the piece. Echoed in
the brilliant gilding, they look

like sprays of wildflowers

that frame the main scenes
of the children.

But even better is the gilding
used to produce the wrinkles

on the trunks of the elephants
and the highly-burnished tusks.

You can see how beautifully
the elephants' heads are modelled

and how the modelling is then picked
up by the colouring of the eyes,

from the eyebrow to almost
a pinky eye shadow

and then the strange, deep,
dark eyes themselves.

They look out at you from these
rather gnarled foreheads.

Best of all, look at how the hairs
are gilded in the elephant's ears -

wonderful naturalistic details,
hugely individual.

They are what give a vase like this
such an incomparable place

in the history of ceramics.

It's rather scary, lifting this up,
but if you tip it up,

you'll see the interlaced Ls
associated with the factory.

L for Louis XV,

D, the date letter for 1756 to 7

and K,

the mark of Charles Nicolas Dodin...
We're not sure why he used a K, but

it's always found on the best vases
with cherub decoration at this time.

Despite the success of the model,
it had a real problem in the kiln,

not least the upturned elephants'
trunks tended to sag,

so Duplessis was sent back to
the drawing board to come up with

something that was a little bit
more resilient

and something that could go
into more general production.

So, here is Duplessis'
second version.

He's added a supportive handle here
in order that the trunk remains

turned upwards, which it needs to be
to support the candleholders on top.

And he added this beautiful
headdress, created of jewels and

pearls to decorate the forehead

of the elephant, with a pear drop

falling down between his eyes.

Most ingeniously, Duplessis
has created a little square hole

in the upturned trunk, across

the flat surface of the trunk...

And here is the porcelain peg
which is equally square

and fits very gently, but absolutely
precariously into the hole...

Now, look at the two elephant
vases together.

One not having a handle
to support the trunk,

the other having the handle...

The tonality of the green colour,

much more turquoise

in the earlier vase, a slightly
harsher green in the later one.

And the use of flowers between the
beads on one, and not on the other.

Nothing is so telling
as the differences

in the personalities
of the elephants themselves.

The appetite for change
and innovation at Sevres meant that

designs and styles changed every
year as the factory went out of

its way to show off its ambition and
capabilities to the French court.

I think the French fashion cycle
that evolves over

the 18th century is actually
very modern, it is really

the beginnings of fashion
as a way of merchandising,

essentially, and selling things.

Every year, when the new styles
are out, they bring

it into the Royal Court, they
display it, they actually I think

take it out of the cardboard boxes
and put it on tables,

and actively encourage
their courtiers to buy it,

so it becomes almost
Louis XV as salesperson,

if you like, for his own object.

But in the 1760s, the fashion
in Sevres changed dramatically,

responding to a new style
that was gaining popularity.

Following the excavations
in Herculaneum in 1738

and in Pompeii ten years later,
ancient,

classical artefacts
circulated the Royal Court.

Influenced by the classical finds,
a new style began to take over.

It was called neoclassicism.

Suddenly, the old rococo pieces
started to look old-fashioned,

it's once-prized frivolity now out
of step with the new seriousness.

Always attuned to the fashions,

Sevres began to experiment
with this new style.

There is both a zeal for reform
that comes in with the 1750s

and a sense that the Crown is seen
to be responding to accusations

that it's lost its way in terms
of its cultural direction

and that it ought to go back to
a grand 17th-century tradition

of classicism.

But neoclassicism is new,
I mean, it's doubly new,

in that it's not entirely
like the 17th century

and it's not entirely like antique
classicism.

In 1764, Madame De Pompadour died
and ten years later,

Louis XV followed her.

Louis XVI and his wife
Marie Antoinette were crowned King

and Queen of France,

heading a court whose tastes were
becoming increasingly extreme,

including of course
the new-look Sevres.

As their indulgent tastes
and lifestyles became more

and more excessive, so did
the inequality in the country.

Resentment towards the court grew.

Marie Antoinette's hairstyle
was said to be so big,

she had to kneel
when riding in the royal carriage.

Sevres' influence
went beyond the French court,

through strategic diplomatic gifts.

Catherine the Great,
another decadent

and powerful European monarch,

decided a Sevres service was

just the thing to send a powerful
message to her own court.

She placed a spectacularly large
order with the factory.

It was to be a glorious
dinner service

which included ice cream cups

and an ice cream cooler.

In 1776, Catherine II,
the great Empress of Russia

commissioned a modern style that
she wanted to introduce into Russia

from western Europe

and also something that would make
a huge statement at court,

both about her skills and education,

her aspirations for Russia

and her smartness of her table.

Her commission kept the factory busy
for three years.

The designs for the plates alone
were changed eight times.

The incredible figural centrepiece
was made up of 91 pieces,

at the heart of which was
a model of Catherine herself,

represented as Minerva,
the Roman goddess of wisdom.

She also had a fantastic
collection of antique cameos.

She had over 10,000.
Luckily, so did Louis XVI,

and the Sevres factory
was allowed to go

and look at his and copy them
in order to create the classical

elements that were to be incorporated

in this staggering dinner service.

Her commission was for 800 pieces

and the factory worked out that

to make 800 of sufficient quality

and the very elaborate designs
that she had selected,

that they would need to make 3,000
pieces and discard hundreds

because of damage in the kiln.

Of course, this was to affect
the price to Catherine as well.

It may at first look as if
this is a historical

document of classical scenes,

but then when you look more closely,
it's got a strange effect,

sort of frozen icicles dripping
down the sides, providing a handle.

It's got heads here that look as
if they might be river gods with

fabulous bulrushes in their hair

and their plaits tied round.

Just imagine the extraordinary
luxury of eating ice cream

in the 18th century,

reflected in a bowl with a cover
like this which enabled you to fill

an inner liner with your ice cream
or sorbet and put crushed ice

and salt in the outer part
of the bowl

and piled high in the steep-walled
cover here,

in order to keep it insulated and
cool until you were ready to eat it.

What an extraordinary thing.

For the Sevres factory to realise
Catherine's incredibly

complicated desires,
they had to start from scratch.

They employed Boizot to create
classical scenes and then they had

to make these cameos, that was part
of Catherine's absolute instruction.

They invented hundreds

and hundreds of these to use on each
piece in the service.

But even more glorious, to reflect
Catherine's passion for cameos, they

also made, on the grandest pieces,
four cameo heads each in relief.

How were they going to make these?

Well, firstly
they decided to make them

in the new hard-paste porcelain
that was more resilient

because they wanted to cut them
on a stonecutter's wheel.

Then they literally redirected
a river to give them

the water power for the mills.

You get these wonderful little
painted scenes, you get the heads to

reflect some of the characters that
appear in those scenes

and they immediately,
with the shape of each piece,

give a completely new classical
flavour to the service.

But it doesn't end there - you've got
extraordinarily dainty pearl

beading to look
also like jewels on the pieces.

You have bands of flowers
and best of all, inside the lid,

you have Catherine's own monogram -
E2, Ekaterina the second,

on every single piece.

So nobody would be in any doubt
who had commissioned it

and who it was for and who was
the genius that thought up such

an extraordinary service
for her table.

It will be no surprise to know
that this service was

extraordinarily expensive.

This ice cream cooler alone
was valued

when it left the factory at ten times
more than the former ice cream

coolers that had been
made in simpler designs.

It was about 30 times the wage
of an average worker at the factory,

so almost a lifetime's earnings.

The entire service cost Catherine
over 330,000 livres.

The cost is equivalent to someone
spending £16 million today.

It was seen as a hugely
successful project,

so much so that King Louis XVI
arrived at the factory in May 1779

to celebrate its completion,
to admire what had been made

and to give each
of the workers a bonus.

Catherine the Great loved her
service, but while she ate from

her gilded plates in St Petersburg,
revolution was fermenting in France.

The Palace of Versailles was being
surrounded by an unhappy populace.

In July 1789,
the Bastille was stormed

and soon after came
the Declaration of Rights.

But things wouldn't be complete

until they had the heads
of the King and Queen.

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette

were both guillotined in 1793.

Sevres, the Royal factory, had made
its name with extraordinary objects

that reflected the monarchy's
decadent tastes and lifestyle.

With hindsight, Sevres porcelain
looks like the product

of a regime blind to its own faults.

I think one can really see
the Ancien Regime in the pots.

It's all about wealth,
it's all about ostentation,

there's very little
human humanity in it.

It's all about the rich people.

The Sevres, it's
so full of its self-importance

and I think if the French
aristocracy had been able to laugh a

bit more at themselves, maybe there
wouldn't have been a revolution.

Despite its associations
with the aristocracy,

these breakable luxury items
survived the revolution.

Rather than being smashed
by Republicans, remarkably,

aristocratic Sevres remained intact.

The moulds and busts
of royalty were destroyed,

but the Sevres factory
and its workers were left alone,

surprising survivors of a bloody
and destructive revolution.

The manufacturer at Sevres may have
been created by the monarchy,

but the people who work for it
aren't monarchists, necessarily.

They may be employed by the King
and the art that comes out of them

is seen as a great triumph
of French spirit,

if you like,
rather than monarchical taste.

So I think it does have the
prestige, but there is a sort

of reinterpretation of it,

not as a symbol of the greatness of
Bourbon taste,

but as a sort of triumph
of French craftsmanship.

Transformation was
always at the heart of Sevres.

It had the vitality
and flexibility to enable it to move

away from any lingering
associations with monarchy.

In 1799,
Napoleon Bonaparte staged a coup

and he became
Emperor of France in 1804.

He quickly realised that Sevres
was just the thing to cement

the image of his new French Empire.

He rescued a near-bankrupt business.

Sevres now took on Napoleon's
Empire style - classical

but supercharged and bombastic.

With the monarchy gone, it was no
longer wise to have those old

aristocratic pieces of Sevres
on your mantelpiece in France.

So where did they go,

the great pieces that once filled
the Palace of Versailles

and the chateaux of France?

The wealthy British became the new
avid collectors of Sevres.

Chief amongst them was George IV,

known for his extravagant tastes
and already a lover of Sevres.

He and other British aristocrats
were able to amass their own

collections from French auctions

and sales which were soon bulging
with Sevres treasures.

Owning a piece of the Ancien Regime

became the ultimate British
fashion statement.

The antique dealers and curiosity

dealer shops were filled with

great treasures and of course

the British contemporary

collectors of Sevres admired it
in the spirit of a connoisseur -

the colour of the paste
and the gradations of colour

and the richness of the tooling.

George IV was drawn to it
because it was exotic

and it was luxurious
and he chose bold forms

and bright colours which made
very clear statements

in his formal rooms.

He was also interested in terms
of the history of the pieces

and almost perpetuating the
Ancien Regime in his own residences.

And so, at around 300 pieces,
the British royal family acquired

perhaps the greatest horde
of Sevres in the world.

But other significant collections
were made by English

aristocrats in France.

From the late 18th
and into the 19th century,

all of them were keen to associate
themselves with the prestige

and sophistication of the French
aristocracy.

The Wallace Collection in London,
now a national museum,

contains the riches acquired
by Richard Seymour-Conway,

the 4th Marquess of Hertford.

He was born in 1800 and brought
up in Paris and as the fourth

generation of a family who admired
and collected 18th-century art

and objects, he was one of
the richest men in Europe.

The 4th Marquess left his entire
estate in collection

to his illegitimate son,
Richard Wallace.

It is through him that
the extraordinary collection

of one family, kept at Hertford
House, was left to the nation.

The British aristocracy had been
gradually selling up with

increasing speed
as the 20th century drew closer

and the trappings of the British
aristocracy were in turn

being appropriated by the new
bankers and industrialists.

A whole gamut of decorative art
from the French Ancien Regime had

immediate appeal because they really
spoke so unequivocally of luxury

and refinement and that's precisely
the sort of lifestyle these

new bankers and industrialists
were hankering after.

So by surrounding themselves
with their view of...the French

18th century,

they were really making a bold
statement about who

they thought they were in society
and they were the ones who,

by the late 19th century,
wielded the wealth.

Chief among them
was Baron Ferdinand De Rothschild,

one of the greatest collectors
of the whole 19th century,

with a keen sense of historically
important objects.

Baron Ferdinand was the most
extraordinary collector.

It's said of the first ship vase
that he bought, he was

so nervous about what he'd paid
for it that he daren't admit to

anyone quite how extravagant
he had been.

Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire,
completed in 1883,

was Baron Ferdinand De Rothschild's
dream home.

A country house with the style

and proportions of an 18th-century
French chateau.

It was filled with all his favourite
objects and artwork,

assembled to please and impress
weekend guests, including

his close friend and the future
king, Edward VII, Prince of Wales.

And here you see this potpourri vase
set on the most magical

piece of Louis XVI furniture
by Riesener, with the most

extraordinary pictorial marquetry,
gleaming gilt bronzes

and the Sevres sits perfectly on it.

And then, when you look up above,

you see a marvellous portrait
by Sir Joshua Reynolds

and this combination of English
portraiture, great French furniture

and fabulous Sevres porcelain
was to be the hallmark of

Baron Ferdinand's great celebration
of his collection at Waddesdon Manor.

Now we need to go and meet him,
seated over here in a portrait...

looking surprisingly formal
and rather austere for a man who

celebrated great works of art
from 18th-century France.

Although he collected his first
piece of Sevres porcelain at only 21,

his collection really began in 1867
after the death of his wife,

Evelina, in childbirth.

That was to lead him to concentrate
all his energies

and enthusiasms in building
the collection to furnish this

magnificent house.

He loved to surround himself with
beautiful things

and this room is so special.

It was his own personal sitting-room,

known as "the Baron's room".

It reflects exactly the things
he loved most.

If you look around the walls,
they're largely covered with

fabulous portraits
by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

All portraits of women - that
obviously mattered enormously to him.

The furniture in here is the best
furniture from the reign of Louis XVI

and yet it has this wonderful sense
of comfort and liveability, somewhere

you could sit and enjoy the great
beauties that you had around you.

Baron Ferdinand - we know
from a photograph - enjoyed

sitting in this chair here,
and I love to think of him sitting

and looking up at the mantelpiece
where you see five

extraordinary neoclassical vases

that Louis XV bought in 1769.

They show you very strong
neoclassical forms,

decorated in monochrome enamel
colours called grisaille decoration,

intending to look like
classical heads

and medallions from ancient Rome,
and they are surrounded by great

bunches of flowers,
tied with pink ribbons.

The blue ground and the gilding
all show it off so beautifully,

particularly as you can see them
reflected in the mirror, so they

have this lovely sense of roundness,
the whole decoration can be seen.

Of course, in a room where
they were shown lit by candlelight

and with the fire playing below them,

all the gilding would have just
become alive in this room.

Now we move from the formal Louis XV
vases to our old friend,

another elephant vase.

Here's an extraordinary one.

You might be forgiven for really not
liking it, because the combination

of the pink and the green
ground colours

might just be a bit too much.

The ground colour is the pink,
with bright green frames

and I find the combination
utterly seductive!

I think it takes a kind of daring

and courage that it's just
wonderful.

The willingness to take risk,
both technically

and in terms of design
at Sevres is astounding.

And quite unprecedented,
I would say.

Sevres continued to follow
the money,

from Baron De Rothschild

to the new American multimillionaire
collectors, like JP Morgan...

..all seeking to acquire their own
little bit of Louis XV,

his power and glamour.

But as the 20th century progressed,
with the clean lines of modernism

in full sway,
tastes changed radically.

The style of Sevres might not be
easy for contemporary eyes, but

they are pieces of perfection, each
one an extraordinary achievement

and a product of an 18th-century
golden age of art and technology.

And it is this inheritance
that has kept the factory going

for over 250 years.

At Sevres, as well as creating
contemporary pieces,

they still make objects
from 18th-century designs.

Sevres porcelain continues to be
the ultimate collectable item

for the super-rich
around the world, all keen to

acquire their own piece
of perfect porcelain.

However, the opulence and grandeur
of Sevres has for a long time

seemed way out of step
with modern taste.

I think there was really a period
in time that you couldn't say

that something was beautiful.

I think it's OK for things to be
beautiful again.

There is a sense in which you can
learn really to appreciate

the complexity and
the difficulties that have to be

overcome in order for these pieces
to come into an existence.

Doing that doesn't seem to me

that that means we're approving
of the regime that produced it.

Otherwise, we'd be in danger
of saying that we could only

admire those things that were
produced in democracies

and democracies that we APPROVE of,
well...

No-one is going to pretend that
the Ancien Regime, you know,

didn't have its problems!
To say the least.

But Sevres wasn't one of those,
I mean,

Sevres is a phenomenal artistic
achievement for the period.

What porcelain gives you, which is
so special, is it gives you

the real sense of the colour
of the time in which it was made.

It took such a technological
explosion of genius to produce

a great piece of porcelain. But the
net result was superlative quality.

It's still as vibrant and brilliant
as it was when it was made,

therefore you can look at this

and you can inhabit the world
for which it was intended.

It's magic.