37

This article analyzes the reasons and methods of the introduction of “Gothic” style in the porcelains of the Manufacture de Sèvres, during the first decades of the 19th century. Despite the interest developed since the 18th century for the national past, Medieval art remained for the most part discredited. At this time, the Sevres production was renowned for the technical perfection and the esthetic nourished mainly by Antique art. The choice of this artistic repertory under the impulsion of the director of the Manufacture, Alexandre Brongniart, became at this period an alternative resource capable of renewing forms and decorations in Sevres. It is equally the harbinger of the wide diversification of sources of inspiration that expressed itself in the beginning of the July Monarchy. This new taste was also the prelude to the scholarly and theoretical approaches to Medieval art that began in the 1840s.