Identifying Duvivier’s birds on two Sceaux faience plates
Shown here are two eight-lobed Sceaux faience plates decorated (by Fidelle Duvivier) in petit feu enamel colors with birds in flight or standing on rocky plateaux with vegetation, surrounded by fruits and delicately outlined leaves painted on the rims. Traces of gilding on the edges.
These two plates came up at a silent auction held in the spring of 2016 in Geneva, Switzerland.* A faience dealer in France was the successful bidder. By chance, I found them at his website a couple of months later and purchased them.
Although the vegetation is painted in a rather unfamiliar and more fluid style, the bird seen on the lower plate was a sure clue that these two plates were decorated by Duvivier (cf. 2, 3a/b, 4).