Sèvres and Patrick Jouin: Light in Biscuit Porcelain

The Manufacture nationale de Sèvres has been making porcelain since 1740 — first at Vincennes, and at Sèvres since 1756. It has never stopped commissioning living artists. This autumn it is Patrick Jouin: a collection of biscuit lighting, shown in its Parisian gallery from 11 September to 3 October.

Petals

The pieces are made of three curved elements in biscuit porcelain — fired, unglazed porcelain, that matte material with the feel of chalk that made the Manufacture's reputation in the eighteenth century. Biscuit has a property glaze does not: it lets light through. When thin, it turns translucent without ever turning glossy. This is exactly what the collection draws on: light diffused by the material itself, rather than by a shade placed in front of it.

A tradition we had forgotten

Sèvres has been making objects of light since its beginnings: the biscuit candlesticks of the eighteenth century, then Henri Rapin's luminous fountain in the 1920s. The collaboration with Patrick Jouin iD belongs to that lineage rather than to the register of ceremonial tableware to which the Manufacture is so often reduced.

Why it interests us

A piece by Sèvres has no cheaper equivalent: it is made by hand, in a very limited run, in a state workshop. It is the exact opposite of what our tool usually looks for — and that is precisely why these objects deserve to be seen. There is a difference between a piece you can find in ten versions across three budgets, and a piece of which only one version exists. Knowing which one stands before you is half the work.

Going there

Galerie de Sèvres — 4 place André Malraux, 75001 Paris. Exhibition Petals, from 11 September to 3 October 2026.

The Beyit gesture: scan a piece you come across in a shop window — the tool tells you whether it is a unique edition or a model that exists elsewhere, and at what price.