Porcelain

The collection of Vincennes and Sèvres porcelain at Dalmeny covers the period of greatest creative achievement in this most difficult of decorative arts. New colours, new forms, new methods of painting came out of the French Royal factory in splendid profusion, reflecting both the State's interest in a lucrative trade and the personal influence of figures like Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV's mistress and arbiter of taste.

Like the furniture in the Drawing Room, Dalmeny's porcelain collection is a superlative guide to a long period of stylistic change, from the earliest pieces of the Vincennes factory in the 1750s to the passage of Sèvres under revolutionary control in 1789.