A very rare Meissen porcelain Commedia dell'Arte subject teabowl and saucer, circa 1722-23
No reserve
Lot closes
June 25, 09:10 AM GMT
Estimate
5,000 - 7,000 EUR
Current Bid
600 EUR
2 Bids
No reserve
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Description
painted with vignettes of Commedia dell'Arte figures framed by flowering plants, the saucer showing Pantalone, the teabowl with a female on one side and a male on the other, with iron-red concentric circles, the interior of the teabowl with an iron-red vignette of flowering plants within concentric circles, gilt-edged rims
(2)
Diameter of saucer 5 ⅛ in; 13 cm
Dr. Siegfried Ducret, Kilchberg.
Dresden, Zwinger Palace, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Johann Gregorius Höroldt 1696-1775 und die Meissener Porzellanmalerei, 4 August - 30 October 1996, nos. 20-21.
Siegfried Ducret, ‘Vorbilder für Porzellanmalereien’, Keramos, no. 44, 1969, pp. 13ff., ill. 3;
Ulrika Kiby, ‘Die Küche der Amalienburg im Schloßgarten von Nymphenburg zu München’, Keramos, no. 108, 1995, p. 79, ill. 73;
Ulrich Pietsch, Johann Gregorius Höroldt 1696-1775 und die Meissener Porzellan-Malerei, exh. cat., Dresden, 1996, pp. 50-51. cat nos. 20-21.
Only a very small number of objects from this exceptionally rare service are known to survive. Since 1918, two teabowls and saucers from the service have been preserved in the collection of the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff (inv. nos. NMW A 32628; and 32629; illustrated in Pietsch, 1996, nos. 16–19). A teapot is held by the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin (Pietsch, 1996, no. 15), while the coffee pot—formerly in the Marouf Collection—was sold at Bonhams, London, 2 May 2013, lot 2 (see Ulrich Pietsch and Claudia Banz, Triumph der blauen Schwerter, exh. cat., Dresden, 2010, cat. no. 50). Two additional saucers were formerly in the Hoffmeister Collection. A further teapot decorated with closely related Commedia dell’Arte figures is in the Warda Stevens Stout Collection (illustrated in Christina H. Nelson and Letitia Roberts, A History of Eighteenth-Century German Porcelain: The Warda Stevens Stout Collection, Easthampton, 2013, cat. no. 21).
In a letter dated 28 August 1722 addressed to Augustus the Strong, Johann Gregorius Höroldt reported that he had delivered “3 Service … von gantz extraordinarer Arbeit”, [three services of entirely extraordinary workmanship], and further noted his wish to obtain drawings of the costumes from the most recent carnival troupes in order to reproduce them on a service: “er wünschte von den letzten Carnevals-Banden die Zeichnung, deren Kleider, umb solche aufs Service zu mahlen”; quoted in Rainer Rückert, Biographische Daten der Meißener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, Munich, 1990, p. 159.
