François Boucher, Madame de Pompadour, 1759. The Wallace Collection.
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson (1721–64), Marquise de Pompadour, became the official mistress of Louis XV of France in 1745, and for the rest of her life their patronage of Vincennes/Sèvres helped to make it one of the greatest porcelain factories in history.
Dame Rosalind Savill, former director of the Wallace Collection and a specialist in Sèvres, discusses Madame de Pompadour’s love of flowers. This floral tribute, celebrating Madame de Pompadour’s 300th birthday on 29 December 2021, shows how she and the royal porcelain factory brought the rococo garden indoors with porcelain flowers, flower pots, bulb pots and pot-pourri vases. She displayed these innovative pieces in most of her rooms, often on the chimney piece or dining table, and even in her bathrooms. But with her death this fleeting new naturalism gave way to ornamental neo-classical vases and the rococo passion for flowers died with her.
Everyday Rococo: Madame de Pompadour and Sèvres Porcelain by Rosalind Savill, is published by Unicorn Publishing Group (December 2021).
Proceeds from our ticket sales benefit museums, galleries and other arts-based organisations and projects.
This is an online event hosted on Zoom which can be watched live, or on-demand for three weeks afterwards. You will receive your link to access the event in your email confirmation and the on-demand link after the event ends.