A rare Meissen porcelain two-handled beaker and stand, circa 1718

With Elfriede Langeloh, Weinheim;

Acquired from the above, 7 January 2019. 

Before the 1720 arrival of Johann Gregorius Höroldt from Vienna, decoration of Meissen was undertaken by independent figures attached to the Dresden Court. Surviving documents show that Georg Funcke was supplying decorated porcelain by 1713, as referenced in a surviving archival letter dated 6 June 1719: 'Georg Funcke, Goldarbeiter hat in der Königl.und Churfl.Porcellain Factur. Sechs Jahr daß Porcellain gemahlet mit allerhand bunten farben und auch Solches', [Georg Funcke, goldsmith, for six years has painted porcelain with all sorts of bright colours and fired them...] (Rainer Rückert, Biographische Daten der Meißener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, Munich, 1990, p. 147.)

A similarly decorated two-handled beaker and stand, probably by the Funcke workshop, with gilded and lustred leafy floral bands, was sold, Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus, Berlin, Alt-Meißener Porzellan aus dem Besitz einer alten Adelsfamilie, 23 March 1904, lot 64. Beakers of this type with applied stiff leaves were included in a further service gilded in the Funcke workshop with birds perching in branches; a surviving beaker is in the Malcolm Gutter Collection, illustrated in Maria Santangelo, A Princely Pursuit, Munich, 2017, p. 79, cat. no. 19; and a second was recently with E & H Manners, London. Funcke's surviving invoices are reproduced in Claus Boltz, 'Steinzeug und Porzellan der Böttgerperiode - Die Inventare und die Ostermesse des Jahres 1719', Keramos, 2000, no. 167/168, pp. 3-156.