Wonderful antique to vintage Sevres style 12" porcelain urn or garniture pair, each with blue/cobalt & gold enamel decoration and hand painted Fragonard or Boucher style romantic figural scenes on one side and landscape or garden scenes on the other! The bottoms/bases of each with the Sevres "Double Louis" interlaced "L" marks but I'm sure they're actually Samson works (one even has a paper label that identifies them as "Antique Sevres Made in France c.1740" though I'm 99.9% sure that's incorrect). A gorgeous pair though, visually impressive and the colors & hand painted panels are just beautiful!
Edmond Samson was a distinguished imitator of Sèvres porcelain in Paris (France - Rue Béranger). Founded in 1873 by: Edm. Samson circa late 19th to 20th century and pretty quickly given the name "Samson the Imitator" since he produced mainly copies of objects from all the famous porcelain factories including Meissen, Sèvres and Naples (Capo di Monte). Initially the copies were made for private collectors and for museums but this soon changed. During the 19th century, the collectors' market for antique fine china was considerable, and Samson’s firm reproduced ceramics in a breadth of styles including the faience and maiolica types of Italian pottery, Persian style dishes, Hispano-Moresque pottery (a blending of Islamic and European motifs, produced during the 13th to 15th centuries), plates in the FitzHugh pattern, as well as plates in the manner associated with Bernard Palissy. Also copied by the Samson firm were the early Qing dynasty famille rose and famille verte Chinese porcelains and the so-called "Imari wares", named for the Japanese port where a type of richly decorated porcelain made at Arita was shipped. The firm exhibited at the International Exposition (1867) and the Exposition Universelle (1889).
The Samson, Edmé et Cie company continued to produce porcelain and pottery until 1969. The salesroom models were sold in 1979 by Christie's, London. Today many of the Samson’s pieces are collectors’ items. Ironically not all pieces attributed to Samson are actually Samson: there were many other Paris workshops producing similar 'copies' of earlier ceramics at the same time.
Very good condition. As noted in the images, ONE of the lids has a visible repaired break with one small piece missing near the gadrooned/beaded area. The ruby colored 'jewel' accents on the lower body are mostly missing with only a few remaining. A few small 'marks' to the cobalt blue areas and some wear to the gold enamel accenting. See pictures for all measurements.
