A rare Meissen porcelain beaker and cover, circa 1723-24
No reserve
Live auction begins on:
June 24, 12:30 PM GMT
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 EUR
Lot Details
Description
of tapering cylindrical form, moulded around the rim with a band of pendant calyces, applied above the iron-red and gilt-edged foot and around the cover beneath the vase shaped finial with a band of stiff acanthus, painted with a continuous hunt scene with figures and hounds by dead stag, before a rocky river landscape with a waterfall and distant buildings, the cover with branches of indianische Blumen
Height 6 ⅞ in; 17,5 cm
Anonymous sale, Christie’s, London, 24 March 1969, lot 3;
Acquired at the above sale by Robert G. and Ilse Vater;
The Vater collection, Christie’s, London, 16 December 2021, lot 83;
Anonymous sale, Metz, Heidelberg, 14 October 2023, lot 129;
Acquired at the above sale.
Beakers of this form are among the earliest productions of Böttger red stoneware and early porcelain at Meissen, and the shape is traditionally attributed to the Saxon court silversmith Johann Jakob Irminger. A strikingly similar beaker perhaps painted by the same hand, with a large continuous scene of figures hunting in a hilly landscape, is in the Porzellansammlung, Dresden, inv. no. PE 664, illustrated and discussed by Ulrich Pietsch, Johann Gregorius Höroldt 1696-1775 und die Meissener Porzellan-Malerei, exh. cat., Dresden, 1996, pp. 24-25. cat no. 1, where the author speculates that it may be an early work by the artist. A similar beaker also painted with a continuous scene, of boats in a harbour, with similar gilt scrolls and iron-red band at the foot is in the David Collection, Copenhagen, inv. no. PM 35. Three beakers of this form were in the collection of Franz and Margarete Oppenheimer, Berlin & Vienna, and were sold at Sotheby’s, New York, 14 September 2021, lots 58, 59 and 95.
