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This and 119 other objects are a part of a set whose first object is Bound Volume, Oeuvres de Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier.

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1920

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Print, Projet de Sculpture en Argent d'un Grand Surtout de Table et les Deux Terrines...Executée pour Millord Kinston (sic) en 1735 (Design for Centerpiece and Two Tureens for the Duke of Kingston in 1735) plate 115 in Œuvre de Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier

This is a Print. It was designed by Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier and etched by Gabriel Huquier. It is dated 1742–48 and we acquired it in 1920. Its medium is etching on off-white laid paper. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.

This print is a view of tureen and a table center piece designed by Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier for Evelyn Pierrepont, Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull in the 1730s. Meissonnier was a French architect and designer who worked for the Louis XV in the early eighteenth-century. The tureens and the surtout (table centerpiece) are prime examples of the rococo style, which had been contemporaneously called the "genre pittoresque." The surtout is composed of sinuous foliate ornaments and playful putti with two cruets for oil and vinegar. The tureen is in the shape of a shell with incrustations and is ornamented with casts of celery roots, onion, carrots, cabbage leaves. The lid features a partridge, crayfish, mushroom and a turnip. The tureens are in fact mirror images of each other and together with the centerpiece, would have been part of a formal meal service. This tureen and another with a different lid were realized in solid silver through the lost wax casting method from 1734-37 by Meissonnier and the Parisian silversmiths Henri Adnet and Pierre-Francois Bonnestrenne. In the etching, the designs are displayed in an imaginary architectural space typical of Meisonnier’s resplendent rococo interiors that in turn highlights the exuberant ornamentation of the tureens. The Duke of Kingston likely commissioned the tureens after his interest in the new French rococo style was sparked following his continental Grand Tour during which his attention would have been drawn to Meissonnier who was considered one of the progenitors of this opulent style. This print is an example of how eighteenth-century French artists and artisans designed for elite foreign patrons and, in turn, used such projects as platforms to advance and disseminate their own artistic styles.

This object was featured in our Object of the Week series in a post titled Surf & Turf: A Silver Tureen for a Duke .

This object was donated by Advisory Council. It is credited Purchased for the Museum by the Advisory Council.

Its dimensions are

Open: 61 × 88.9 × 5.1 cm (24 × 35 × 2 in.) Platemark: 38.1 × 64.1 cm (15 in. × 25 1/4 in.)

Cite this object as

Print, Projet de Sculpture en Argent d'un Grand Surtout de Table et les Deux Terrines...Executée pour Millord Kinston (sic) en 1735 (Design for Centerpiece and Two Tureens for the Duke of Kingston in 1735) plate 115 in Œuvre de Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier; Designed by Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier (French, b. Italy, 1695–1750); Etched by Gabriel Huquier (French, 1695–1772); France; etching on off-white laid paper; Open: 61 × 88.9 × 5.1 cm (24 × 35 × 2 in.) Platemark: 38.1 × 64.1 cm (15 in. × 25 1/4 in.); Purchased for the Museum by the Advisory Council; 1921-6-212-72

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<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18222845/ |title=Print, Projet de Sculpture en Argent d'un Grand Surtout de Table et les Deux Terrines...Executée pour Millord Kinston (sic) en 1735 (Design for Centerpiece and Two Tureens for the Duke of Kingston in 1735) plate 115 in Œuvre de Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=20 April 2024 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>