View source for Tureen

{{Short description|Serving dish for soups and stews}}
{{other uses}}
[[File:Ngv, jacques-françois Micaud, zuppiera e vassorio, porcellana di sèvres.JPG|thumb|300px|A [[Sèvres porcelain|Sèvres]] soup tureen and tray. Sèvres porcelain, [[National Gallery of Victoria]], Australia]]
[[File:Tureen Paul Charvel.jpg|thumb|[[Silver-gilt]] tureen, Paris, 1769–70]]
[[File:FaïenceEmileGallé.jpg|thumb|An [[Émile Gallé]] (1846–1904) tureen]]
A '''tureen''' is a serving dish for foods such as [[soup]]s or [[stew]]s, often shaped as a broad, deep, oval vessel with fixed handles and a low domed cover with a knob or handle. Over the centuries, tureens have appeared in many different forms: round, rectangular, or made into fanciful shapes such as animals or wildfowl. Tureens may be ceramic&mdash;either the glazed [[earthenware]] called [[faience]], or [[porcelain]]&mdash;or [[silversmith|silver]], and customarily they stand on an undertray or platter made ''en suite''.{{efn-lr|"as part of a set"}}

==Etymology==
[[Image:ChardinSilverTureen1728.jpg|thumb|''Still Life (The Silver Tureen)'', [[Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin|Chardin]], 1728 ([[Metropolitan Museum of Art]])]]
The tureen as a piece of tableware called a ''pot à oille''&mdash;a Catalan-Provençal soup&mdash;came into use in late seventeenth-century [[France]]. Alternative explanations for the etymology are that it is related to the earlier word ''terrine'', a borrowing from the French for 'a large, circular, earthenware dish'<ref>''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English'' (Oxford 1995: 9th edition; ed. Thompson), p. 1503</ref> or that it is named to honour the French military hero [[Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne|Marshal Turenne]].

==History==
The tureen's prehistory may be traced to the use of the [[communal bowl]], but during the reign of [[Louis XIV of France|Louis XIV]] it was developed from a practical covered serving vessel into one of the most richly ornamented centerpieces of the formal apparatus of dining. This period also saw the old practice of dressing the dinner table with every dish at once (''[[service à la française]]'') superseded by the new practice of separate courses at meal time (''[[service à la russe]])'', each ''[[entrée]]'' entering from the kitchens with an air of ceremony.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O10960/soup-tureen-parker-wakelin/soup-tureen-parker--wakelin/|title=Soup tureen|date=October 31, 1760|website=Victoria & Albert Museum}}</ref>
Soup remained the first course of most meals, from the king's table to the peasant's, and the soup tureen on its serving platter provided the opening ceremony. Tureens naturally tended towards the impressive; the world's record auction price fetched for a single piece of silver was achieved by a silver tureen made in 1733 by the Parisian silversmith [[Thomas Germain]], sold at [[Sotheby's|Sotheby's New York]], 13 November 1996: at US$10,287,500, tripling the former record.

===Silver tureens===
Most seventeenth-century French silver tureens were melted down to finance the wars of Louis' late years and may be glimpsed only in paintings. The ornate silver tureens of that period figure in ''buffets''&mdash;still life of silver and game&mdash;by artists such as [[Alexandre-François Desportes]], or in more modest [[still life]], such as the painting by [[Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin]] (''illustration''), which is dated 1728 but depicts a silver tureen of [[Baroque]] form of the first decade of the century.

===Eighteenth century===
During the mid-eighteenth century, tureens in appropriate naturalistic shapes, such as tureens in the form of a head of cabbage, were popular. The [[Chelsea porcelain]] manufactory produced tureens in the form of rabbits: a Chelsea sale catalogue of 1755 advertised a "Fine tureen in the form of a rabbit as big as life."<ref>https://www.artic.edu/artworks/71154/tureen-in-the-form-of-a-rabbit Art Institute of Chicago "Tureen in the Form of a Rabbit" (2023).</ref>

==Écuelles and saucières==
[[File:Covered Bowl and Stand (Écuelle) LACMA M.2001.6a-c (1 of 3).jpg|thumb|right|Écuelle and stand, [[Sèvres porcelain]], 1776]]
Tureens are most practical for serving about six people. In eighteenth-century France, a small individual covered standing bowl on a small platter, essentially an individual tureen, was called an '''''écuelle''''' (also anglicised to ecuelle). It could be lifted by its twin handles and drunk from directly. The shape was used for other purposes; it is often found in [[toilet service]]s, where its purpose is uncertain. Its modern descendant in [[tableware]] is the two-handled cream soup bowl on matching plate. A small covered dish for sauce, called a ''saucière'', could also take the form of a small tureen; it might be integral with its platter (''illustration right''), for ease in handling and to contain drips.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.sevresciteceramique.fr/ressources/bibliotheque-et-documentation.html|title=Bibliothèque et documentation|website= Manufacture Nationaux de Sevres}}</ref>{{failed verification|date=October 2023}}

<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px" perrow="3">
File:Ecuelle and saucer, Chinese figures (1 of 2), France, Chantilly, c. 1735-1740, soft-paste porcelain - California Palace of the Legion of Honor - DSC07669.JPG|[[Chinoiserie]] ecuelle (matching saucer not shown), France, [[Chantilly porcelain]], {{circa|1735}}–1740, [[soft-paste porcelain]]
Image:Musée de la faïence-20-saucière.jpg|A [[faience]] ''saucière'' in [[Rococo]] taste, factory of the [[Veuve Perrin]], Marseille, {{circa|1760}}–80
File:Tureen, 1752-1756, Chelsea Porcelain Manufactory, England, porcelain with enamel - Art Institute of Chicago - DSC09771.JPG|Tureen, depicting a rabbit, [[Chelsea porcelain]], England, porcelain with enamel
File:ChelseaSwanTureeen.JPG|A swan tureen, [[Chelsea porcelain]], England
Image:tureen.jpg|A [[Sèvres porcelain]] tureen, 1782, once owned by [[John Adams|John]] and [[Abigail Adams]]
File:State Gifts Tureen.JPG|Bicentennial Commemorative tureen painted with red, blue, and gold. Gift of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip of the United Kingdom, 1976
</gallery>

==Collections==
John T. Dorrance, a member of the family owners of [[Campbell's Soup]], assembled, starting in 1966, the largest representative collection of soup tureens, which has been donated to the [[Henry Francis DuPont Winterthur Museum]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.winterthur.org/ceramics/|title=Ceramics|date=March 28, 2021|website= Winterthur Museum}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Terrine (cookware)]]

==Notes==
{{notelist-lr}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
*[http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/casting_nature/ (Getty Museum) "Casting Nature: François-Thomas Germain's ''Machine d'Argent''], 2006
*[http://www.antiquesandthearts.com/archive/soup.htm Campbell Collection of Soup Tureens at Winterthur]

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Serving vessels]]