ALFRED SERRE (1837-1906) ET FERDINAND BARBEDIENNE (1810-1892), 1881

Los 73
11.12.2025 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
VeranstaltungsortVereinigtes Königreich, London
Aufgeldsee on Website%
ID 1514227
Los 73 | ALFRED SERRE (1837-1906) ET FERDINAND BARBEDIENNE (1810-1892), 1881
Schätzwert
€ 3 000 – 5 000
ALFRED SERRE (1837-1906) ET FERDINAND BARBEDIENNE (1810-1892), 1881
Prudence, Prospérité et Loyauté
suite trois plaques rectangulaires en émail peint polychrome, rehauts d'or, signées et datées ‘A.SERRE.INV.1881’ et 'maison F.BARBEDIENNE.', titrées au revers 'PROSPERITÉ durable', 'PRUDENCE' et 'LOYAUTÉ', deux plaques dans des cadres en bronze doré
21 x 7,5 cm. (8 ¼ x 3 in.) ; 22,8 x 8 cm. (9 x 3 1/8 in.), avec le cadre(3)




Provenance

Pour Prudence et Loyauté : Sotheby's, 9 février 1979, lot 7.



Literature

Bibliographie comparative :
P. Masse, « Ferdinand Barbedienne et Alfred Serre. Un chef-d’œuvre exhumé à l’Hôtel de Ville de Paris », in. Sèvres. Revue de la Société des Amis du musée national de la Céramique, n°17, 2008, pp. 94-106.



Further details

A SET OF THREE RECTANGULAR ENAMELLED PLAQUES DEPICTING THE ALLEGORIES OF PROSPERITY, PRUDENCE, AND LOYALTY, ALFRED SERRE (1837–1906) AND FERDINAND BARBEDIENNE (1810–1892), 1881


Alfred Serre received his initial training with the history painter Eugène Levasseur before beginning a career as a designer in jewelry. Early on, he experimented with enamel through small grisaille plaques, continually refining his technique and acquiring the knowledge that would make him both inventive and a master in execution.

Informed of Serre’s early successes by the animal sculptor Auguste-Nicolas Cain, Ferdinand Barbedienne secured his exclusive collaboration. He provided Serre with unlimited credit, and an enameling kiln was installed within the foundry itself. In 1872, Serre thus joined the Barbedienne workshop, where he was appointed director of painted enamels, while Fernand Thesmar was responsible for cloisonné and champlevé enamels until 1878. Independent from competing workshops, Serre composed his own enamel powders and developed a personal artistic language, which earned him his first awards as early as 1873.

Among his most remarkable creations is a series of mythological enamels designed to adorn a large Neo-Renaissance clock (Hôtel de Ville, Paris), conceived by Constant Sévin and executed by Barbedienne. Exhibited at the 1889 Universal Exhibition, this clock represents the pinnacle of the collaboration between Alfred Serre and Ferdinand Barbedienne, earning the enamellist a gold medal and the manufacturer a Grand Prix. That same year, Serre also produced a set of enamel plaques for an ebony and bronze cabinet, presented at the Universal Exhibition and designed with the same collaborators. This time, the subjects were allegorical (Fertility, Intelligence, Moral Strength, Home, Grace, and Sincerity) in the form of caryatid figures.

The present plaques, depicting Lasting Prosperity, Prudence, and Loyalty, very likely belong to a comparable furniture project. Another series of decorative allegorical plaques, created for a wedding casket and now preserved at the Château de Compiègne (inv. C63.022.6), differs from the present set in its colour palette, but shares an iconographic detail: the figure of Fertility bears the same fruits that appear at the base of the Prosperity plaque.
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