Many connoisseurs and collectors have a preference for soft-paste porcelain, especially that of Sèvres, since the colouring is more translucent and less 'solid' than the later hard-paste. The title here is seen as the great authority on the subject.

The soft-paste Sèvres porcelain factory opened in Vincennes in 1745 (later moving to Versailles in 1756), quickly taking the limelight from Meissen in the mid 1750s. By this time the latter was in decline and Sèvres took the mantle as the arbiter of fashion, becoming the leading porcelain factory in Europe. There is no question that the patronage of Louis XV's mistress, Madame de Pompadour, greatly aided this meteoric rise.

It was not until 1769, when hard-paste porcelain entered production, that a distinction was made in nomenclature between porcelaine de France or vieuse Sèvres (soft paste, or pâte tendre) and porcelaine royale (hard paste, or pâte dure).

Folio; half-title and and title printed in red & black, 50 stunning chromolithographed plates heightened with gold, captioned tissue guards, occasional marginal soiling or browning, a few guards frayed at edges, two with corner section missing, otherwise very good; publisher's two-tone green cloth, professionally restored at extremities, all edges gilt.