Louis Gerverot

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Louis Victor Gerverot (born December 8, 1747 in Lunéville , France, † January 6, 1829 in Bevern , district of Holzminden) was a French entrepreneur and porcelain painter . From 1797 to 1814 he headed the porcelain factory Fürstenberg in the Principality of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel .

Live and act

The son of a musician at the court of Stanislaus I. Leszczyński , Duke of Lorraine, Polish king in exile and father-in-law of the French king Louis XV. , learned the porcelain handicraft in Lunéville and worked until 1795 in various French, German, Dutch and English porcelain factories, including the royal porcelain manufacture Sèvres , and briefly as a bird painter in the ducal porcelain manufacture Fürstenberg in 1766/67.

In 1797, he was appointed head of the Fürstenberg porcelain factory, which at that time was in a creative and economic crisis. Gerverot succeeded in giving the manufacture a new upswing at the beginning of the 19th century. In view of the growing competition from French porcelain products at the Braunschweig fair, Gerverot initiated improvements in operational processes and tried to attract experienced French ceramists to Fürstenberg. He also increased the quality of Fürstenberg porcelain products, experimented with different colored funds and introduced the Empire style in Fürstenberg. The dishes and vase models introduced by Gerverot remained successful until the 1840s.

The court of Jérôme Bonaparte , King of Westphalia and brother of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, was one of the most important buyers of Fürstenberg porcelain . Since 1808, Gerverot had succeeded in getting the artistic director of the "Maison du Roi", the royal household, Jean-Georges Constantin Laflèche (1773–1835) , and his successor Moulard from 1811 , interested in the products of the only porcelain manufacturer in the Kingdom of Westphalia. As the property of the Westphalian crown, Fürstenberg was raised to the rank of "Manufacture Royale" in 1808 and, in addition to more elaborate ornamental porcelain, manufactured especially cups, busts and vases in the French Empire style for members of the royal court and ministers until 1813 for the court of King Jérômes Porcelain for everyday use, but also large-sized planters for orange trees.

Because of his good relations with the Westphalian court, Gerverot was accused by the Brunswick government in 1814 of collaborating with the Franco-Westphalian rule, which ended in October 1813 after the Battle of the Nations . The management of the porcelain factory was withdrawn from him. Between 1815 and 1825 he was director of the faience manufacture Wrisbergholzen . In recognition of his services, the Braunschweig government granted him a pension and a right of residence in Bevern Castle in 1820 . Gerverot died in 1829.

In 2008, an exhibition in the Museum Schloss Wilhelmshöhe in Kassel paid tribute to the close ties between Gerverot and his Fürstenberg porcelain factory with King Jérôme and the Westphalian court. Gerverot's Fürstenberg porcelain was characterized "as part of the table culture and spatial art of the time".

In autumn 2017, the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum dedicated an exhibition with extensive loans, in particular from the Napoléon Foundation and private lenders, for the first time to the artistic and stylistic influence of the imperial porcelain manufacturer Sèvres since 1804 and the numerous Parisian porcelain manufacturers such as Dagoty , Dihl et Guérard , Nast and others. v. a. on the introduction of new forms and decors in the style of the Empire in Fürstenberg under the direction of Gerverot.

literature

  • Oliver Baustian: La porcelaine de Fürstenberg et ses modèles parisiens (1800-1815) . In: Revue Sèvres No. 28 (2019) , pp. 72–81.
  • Charlotte Jacob-Hanson: Further Findings on the Life and Career of Louis Victor Gerverot. In: American Ceramic Circle Journal, Volume XIV, 2010
  • Charlotte Jacob-Hanson: Louis Victor Gerverot in a new light: his early years and bird painting, 1766-1773 - Biography. In: Magazine Antiques, Jan. 2004
  • Dieter Lent: Gerverot, Victor Louis . In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Günter Scheel (ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon: 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung Verlag, Hannover 1996, ISBN 3-7752-5838-8 , p. 207.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Oliver Baustian: La porcelaine de Fürstenberg et ses modèles parisiens (1800-1815). In: Revue Sèvres No. 28 (2019), pp. 72–81 .
  2. ↑ a b cf. Dieter Lent: Gerverot, Victor Louis . In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Günter Scheel (ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon: 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung Verlag, Hannover 1996, p. 207.
  3. ↑ Oliver Baustian: "The porcelain trade in the Kingdom of Westphalia - trade promotion and competition under the sign of the système continental" In: "Porcelaine royale - Napoleon's importance for Sèvres and Fürstenberg" (exhibition catalog Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum), Dresden 2017, pp. 42–55 .
  4. ↑ Oliver Baustian: Alexandre Brongniart and the Fürstenberg Manufactory - On the historical origin of the porcelain inventory from Sèvres in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum. Ed .: In: Porcelaine royale _ Napoleon's importance for Sèvres and Fürstenberg. Museum catalog Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum Braunschweig, Sandstein Dresden 2017, pp. 10–25.
  5. ↑ Oliver Baustian / Guillaume Nicoud: State gifts made of porcelain / Sèvres and Fürstenberg in the service of Napoléon and Jérôme. In: Porcelaine royale _ Napoleon's importance for Sèvres and Fürstenberg. Museum catalog Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum Braunschweig, Sandstein Dresden 2017, pp. 26–35 .
  6. ↑ See Museum Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Kassel: White gold for "King Lustik" - Jérôme Bonaparte and the Royal Porcelain Manufactory Fürstenberg. Exhibition April 18 to September 7, 2008 ( Memento from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 2.7 MB), program booklet, p. 7
  7. ↑ See Museum Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Kassel: White gold for "King Lustik" - Jérôme Bonaparte and the Royal Porcelain Manufactory Fürstenberg. Exhibition April 18 to September 7, 2008 ( Memento from March 18, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ^ Museum catalog Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum Braunschweig, Sandstein Dresden 2017 (Ed.): Porcelaine royale _ Napoleon's importance for Sèvres and Fürstenberg .
personal data
SURNAME Gerverot, Louis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gerverot, Louis Victor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French entrepreneur and porcelain painter
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1747
PLACE OF BIRTH Luneville
DATE OF DEATH January 6, 1829
Place of death Bevern , Holzminden district