Identical replica of a 1803 cup and saucer. Reminiscent of a chalice, this cup is embellished with a portrait of Bonaparte in the apparel of the President of the Italian Republic, before he became King of Italy in 1805. The cockerel adorning the matching violet saucer is therefore a republican symbol. The portrait of Bonaparte is probably one of the very first depictions of the future Emperor to appear on a Sèvres porcelain item. It was painted in the fall of 1803 by the porcelain Manufacture de Sèvres chief artist, Claude-Charles Gérard, from a miniature by the artist Jean-Baptiste Isabey (1767-1855).