Museum accessions

A recent gift to the New Orleans Museum of Art is an extremely fine pair of French porcelain candelabra that were produced in Limoges for Haviland Brothers and Company, a ceramics firm that had its beginnings in New York City.

The Haviland family were active as dealers and importers of ceramic wares in the city from 1821; later, members of the family also had connected businesses in South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. In 1841 David Haviland left his New York residence and sailed to France, and by 1842 he had established himself in Limoges. In this new and growing ceramics center, he oversaw the production of French porcelain geared to the taste of his American buyers. At first he had molds designed that included elements of both English and French design, and soon he also established his own decorating shop.

The curator of decorative arts at the New Orleans Museum of Art, John Webster Keefe, noted in a recent discussion of the candelabra that "Haviland proved to be a businessman possessing the rare combination of excellent taste, marketing savvy, a flair for innovation, unflagging energy and the ability to turn a profit." While in the process of setting up a complete porcelain manufactory, which was licensed by the French government in 1853, he submitted several fine pieces of ornate porcelain to the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1853-1854.

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A guide to that newly opened exhibition Art and Industry ... in the Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, edited by Horace Greeley in 1853, notes that in vases and in fancy porcelain, "there is nothing in the Palace which approaches the specimens shown by Messrs. Haviland & Co., of Limoges, and of John-street in this city; the large size of these ornaments, the beauty of the coloring, clearness of the picture, and the chasteness of the designs, place them in the first rank." Indeed Haviland made off with a medal.

The candelabra now in New Orleans are the gift of Dr. Wayne T. Moore of Alabama who presented them in memory of his wife, Elizabeth Nelms Moore, whose family purchased them on a visit to the Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1854. In fact they appear in an engraving (an accompanying gift) from the 1854 official catalogue, The World of Science, Art and Industry Illustrated from Examples in the New-York Exhibition, 1853-1854, edited by Benjamin Silliman and C. R. Goodrich. The biscuit porcelain figures in eighteenth-century costume are brightly painted and gilded and are in the height of the fashionable rococo revival style. While similar examples of such galants figures are found on girandoles as well as on vases created by Haviland, no others are documented to the fair. In addition, each candelabrum is in wonderful condition. There are no whistles, but these works have all their original eight dangling bells (actually bellflowers), which, over the years, were carefully preserved and stored separately. The candelabra are unusually large, over two feet in height. They are surely impressive and elegant examples of the production of this well-known Limoges firm.

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