Description
Dihl and Guerhard, founded in 1781 were one of the top porcelain factories in Paris at the end of the eighteenth century. At this point, the Sevres factory had the monopoly of Royal commissions but the competition for all other orders was intense, as was the investment required. Dihl et Guerard had the advantage of the backing of Duc D’Angouleme, nephew of the king Louis XVI, and the factory was known by this name until the Revolution in 1789, at which point Angouleme and family were exiled to Italy and then England.
The factory carried on as Dihl et Guerhard and maintained its preeminent postion with major commissions from Bonaparte and the Spanish royal family as well as with England and the Russian court.
A centrepiece now in the Hermitage Museum, commissioned from Dihl et Guérhard for Prince Eugene de Beauharnais in 1811 uses the same gilded Psyche figures (the wreaths now missing) on an elongated octagonal plinth base.
Though the trays differ, the woven basket pattern on our centrepiece is found on other comports by Dihl of this period and was presumably a matter of choice. Prince Eugene was the stepson (and a favourite) of Napoleon I through Empress Josephine’s first husband Alexandre de Beauharnais.
