"Fuseau" Vase of Madame Mère

The cartouche, painted by Jean Georget after David's famous Bonaparte Crossing the Alps, displays the ambition of the Sèvres painters to vie with the masters of easel painting. The vase, otherwise decorated with gold ornaments and trophies on a tortoise-shell colour ground, was offered by Napoleon to Madame Mère (his mother) for the christening of the King of Rome (his son, Napoleon François-Joseph Charles).