Rihouet Paris porcelain fifty-piece dessert service

This fine fifty-piece dessert service is by Rihouet, a leading producer of porcelain active in Paris during the first half of the 19^th Century. The firm was founded by Louis Marie François Rihouet, who established himself in Paris in 1818 as a porcelain decorator. In the early 1830s, Rihouet moved his firm to the rue de la Paix, where his operation expanded and continued to manufacture luxury porcelain until his retirement in 1853. The present service, the pieces marked to their undersides ‘rue da la Paix’, was thus created sometime during the period between the 1830s and about 1850.

The service is comprised of a pierced lozenge-shaped figural centrepiece basket, a pair of krater-form vases, a pair of pierced and footed circular fruit baskets, a pair of tazze, four footed circular comports, four scallop shell shaped dishes, and thirty five dessert plates.

Each of the fifty pieces is painted with a different botanical study, the brightly coloured floral bouquets painted atop white porcelain ground and contained within tooled gilt cartouches. The pieces feature green-ground borders painted with darker green rocaille motifs and adorned with vignettes of smaller botanical studies. As is the manner with Paris porcelain, the pieces are profusely gilt: the socles of the tazze, comports, and vases, for instance, are elaborately gilt, as are the borders and cartouches throughout.

Most of the pieces are signed underside ‘Rihouet / Rue de la Paix’

Centrepiece vase: Height 39cm, width 40cm, depth 20cm
Dessert plate: Height 3cm, diameter 23cm