Sèvres

Sèvres is the porcelain manufactory established under French royal patronage. Although its name is mostly associated with tableware, vases, and figurines, the workshop's eighteenth-century output also included a small group of porcelain pipe bowls. The number of these bowls was never large; today Sèvres is remembered in pipe history less as a brand than as a name representing the French branch of the porcelain pipe tradition.

The Birth of the Royal Manufactory

The workshop's core was established in 1740 in Vincennes near Paris, in a tower of the old royal château. After lengthy trials, soft-paste porcelain was successfully achieved, and a royal privilege was granted in 1745; this privilege covered the right to produce porcelain painted and gilded in the Saxon manner, that is, in the style of Meissen. The monopoly granted in 1752 for polychrome pieces reinforced this position. The business moved to Sèvres in 1756, and was bought outright by Louis XV in 1759. The long-standing support of the king's mistress, Madame de Pompadour, is considered decisive in the workshop rising to a trend-setting position in Europe.

The move to hard-paste porcelain came later. The discovery of kaolin deposits at Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche near Limoges in 1768 opened the way for this technique, and hard-paste production began in 1770; according to accounts, the workshop had bought the secret of the formula earlier, around 1761. The two pastes were used side by side for a time, and soft-paste production was discontinued in 1804.