WO and a half centuries of age difference matter little when there is affinity.) pairs Sèvres and Vincennes pieces with contemporary ceramics, glass, silver, steel, lacquer and hardstone. ‘Such display allows for interesting juxtapositions,’ says director Mark Piolet. He likes to pair this Sèvres tray from about 1770—‘an old friend I first sold in the 1990s, quietly grand’—with two vases by artist Andrew Wicks. ‘His work is exceptionally fine. His wheel-thrown, bleached vessels are painstakingly carved into, creating organic surfaces akin to coral. He often groups pieces for display, referencing 18th-century export-trade porcelain garnitures.’ The curves of the vases pay enough of a homage to the tray’s sinuous shape and their almost ethereal paleness sets off the blue ground and gilded pattern of the Sèvres.
