This accomplished bust is presumed to be of the count of Vercelli as it bears the coat of arms of Vercelli under the coronet of a count.
The arms of the town of Vercelli under a civic coronet.
The Royal Porcelain Factory or Manifacture Royale de Porcelaine was established under the patronage of King Vittorio Amedeo III in the fourteenth century castle of Vinovo near Turin.
Pierre-Antoine Hannong was invited to Piedmont by a partner in one of the earlier short-lived factory of Vische, Giovanni Vittorio Brodel. Arthur Lane describes Hannong as the black sheep of the famous Strasbourg family who had tried to sell the secret of hard paste porcelain to Sèvres and had briefly established a factory at Vincennes. He is first recorded at Vinovo on the 1st September 1776. The factory went bankrupt in 1779.
The Vinovo factory produced numerous anbitious groups in biscuit porcelain, but no other bust on this scale appears to be recorded.
The Town of Vercelli is 80 kilometres from Turin and was part of the Lombard league.
Condition:
Chips to extremeties of the stand; slight wear to gilding. Firing cracks.
Provenance:
Galerie Didier Aaron, Paris, 1993
Price: £18,000
