The Bourne Auction Rooms in its final auction of 2025 offered for sale a fine Limoges porcelain part dessert service. With much presale interest, and fierce bidding online, the service realised £1900 on sale day.
Limoges porcelain is a hard paste porcelain and is used as an umbrella term for porcelain created in and around the city of Limoges in France, and is therefore not to be confused with a single factory such as Wedgwood or Royal Doulton.
In early 19thC France, due to the prolificacy of clay found around the area of Limoges, the area supplanted Paris as the hub of porcelain production, although state-owned Serves continued to stay on the outskirts of Paris. In 2017 the term ‘Limoges Porcelain’ was protected to ensure that only porcelain produced in Limoges using traditional methods of production was able to bear this title.
Known for its brilliant white colour it is the perfect base for hand painted designs and the use of gilding.; in some cases, pieces bear multiple factory marks as they were exported to factories outside of Limoges for decoration. The dessert service sold on the 10th December was decorated in this manner. Comprising six plates, a pair of tazza and a comport each piece of the service was decorated with reproductions of well known portraits after seminal artists within a cobalt blue border: The Milkmaid Psyche at the water level, Mrs Robinson, Napoleon I, Marie Henrietta of England, Good Night, Madame Lebrun, Vestal Virgin, and Lisette.
Taking into consideration that each piece was hand painted and not transfer printed, which would have taken highly skilled artists many hours to create, as well as talented potters to fire correctly without cracking the glaze or the piece itself, it is easy to see why the service generated such interest with collectors.
But if your budget does not stretch to the thousands, collectors are still able to pick up pieces at auction for significantly lower prices. Pieces of Limoges porcelain can be found within most Golding Young sales, past examples include an Art Deco coffee service by the Legrand & Co factory decorated with arches in grey, black and orange with gilt borders which realised £50 on saleday. As well as a box and cover in cobalt blue glaze bearing the initial and crest of Napoleon which sold for £30.
