Vase Japon

A rare and beautiful vase created at the Sèvres porcelain manufactory was acquired in honor of Director Emerita Anne L. Poulet on the occasion of her retirement. The vase, a partial Frick purchase and a partial gift from Alexis and Nicolas Kugel, is the first piece of hard-paste Sèvres porcelain to enter the collection. It complements the museum’s substantial Sèvres holdings made with the earlier soft-paste formula, objects obtained by Henry Clay Frick from the dealer Joseph Duveen. This acquisition was particularly appropriate given Anne Poulet’s interest in eighteenth-century French decorative arts. In the winter of 2012, the vase was displayed alongside selections from a promised gift of hard-paste Meissen porcelain objects in the Portico Gallery.