Washington Winter Show 2019

This beautiful porcelain tea bowl, manufactured in Niderviller, France, is part of a custom-decorated tea-and-coffee service presented to Mrs. Washington by the Comte de Custine de Sarreck in 1782. This Chinese export porcelain pla er, in the Society of the Cincinnati pa ern, was used by the Washingtons for serving large portions of meat, including Martha’s prized Virginia hams. 49 aimed to advertise his wares to a new American market and simplify the process of ordering the desired design. While splendidly decorated porcelain services were frequently presented as gifts to European royalty, aristocrats, diplomats, and military heroes, the Washington service is the only known example of an 18th-century French porcelain set specifically crafted for an American recipient. A total of eighteen pieces from the service have been returned to Mount Vernon, including a charming cream jug reportedly given by Martha Washington to Dolley Madison. The Society of the Cincinnati Porcelain Service As the Revolutionary War drew to a close, a group of French and American officers formed the Society of the Cincinnati, primarily as a means of maintaining their mutual support and friendship. The fraternity’s name was inspired by the 5th-century B.C. Roman general Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who put down his plow to help defend Rome in battle and afterward relinquished command and returned to his farm. When George Washington similarly resigned his commission to resume A Present of Elegant China — The Niderviller Porcelain Service In the years after the Revolutionary War, the Washingtons served guests on fashionable French or Chinese porcelains. The first of these services arrived at Mount Vernon in the summer of 1782. Returning home from a winter stay at her husband’s headquarters in Newburgh, New York, Martha learned that a group of French officers from General Rochambeau’s army was encamped a few miles away in Alexandria. Undaunted by her long journey, she invited them to dinner the next day. The Comte de Custine de Sarreck, one of several French officers who had served under Rochambeau and Washington at Yorktown in 1781, sent ahead of his arrival a splendid tea-and-coffee service made for the Washingtons at his porcelain factory in Niderviller. All the pieces feature George Washington’s monogram, exalted in the clouds and crowned with a floral wreath. Unlike most such sets, this one displays a remarkable variety of gilt and multicolored enamel borders—ribbons, swags, garlands, bands, trellises, and scrolls. Each unique border is identified by a number painted on the underside of the piece, suggesting that Custine cleverly