A Meissen Porcelain Octagonal Sugar Box and Cover, circa 1718-20

Margravine Karoline Luise of Baden-Durlach (1723-83);

To her son, Hereditary Prince Karl Ludwig of Baden (1755-1801);

Thence by descent to Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden (1826-1907);

Thence by descent to the Collections of the Margraves and Grand Dukes of Baden, Sotheby's Baden-Baden, 18 October 1995, lot 1275;

where acquired until sold anonymously, Bonhams, London, 6 July, 2023, lot 44;

Where acquired by the present collector.

Karlsruhe, Zähringer Museum (Private Collection of Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden, exhibited in the rooms of the former Grand Ducal Naturalia Cabinet in the Residenzschloss), 1879-1919;

Baden-Baden, Zähringer Museum, Neues Schloss, circa 1960-1990.

K. Koelitz, Beschreibendes Inventar der Allerhöchsten Privatsammlung kuntgewerblicher Gegenstände (Zähringer Museum), unpublished manuscript, Karlsruhe 1883, nos. 2164;

Richter, Inventar des Zähringer Museums, unpublished manuscript, Baden-Baden 1919, no. 2386;

C. Boltz, "Die wöchentlichen Berichte über die Tätigkeit der Meissner Dreher und Former vom 6. Juni 1722 bis 31. Dezember 1728", in Keramos 178, 2002, ill. 128.

This sugar box and cover formed part of the celebrated porcelain cabinet of Margravine Karoline Luise of Baden-Durlach (1723-1783). During the second half of the eighteenth century, she incorporated much of the historic porcelain inherited from both her own and her husband's families into the scientific displays of the Naturalia Cabinet at the Karlsruhe Residence. The collection is recorded in her posthumous inventory and again in that of her son, Karl Ludwig von Baden-Durlach (1755-1801). In 1879, the porcelain was reinstalled in the same rooms of the Grand Ducal Residence in Karlsruhe that had formerly housed the Naturalia Cabinet and was subsequently documented in Karl Koelitz's 1883 inventory. Following the abdication of the last Grand Duke of Baden in 1918, the collection was recognized as private family property and transferred the following year to the Neues Schloss, Baden-Baden.

Only one comparable example of this rare and early floral decoration appears to be recorded in the literature: a teapot and cover formerly in the pre-war collection of Lisa and Heinrich Arnhold, Dresden, published by M. Cassidy-Geiger, Maureen, The Arnhold Collection of Meissen Porcelain, 1710-50, London, 2008, p. 753, fig. 26.

Related Literature

S. Kuhn, "Porcelaine à la Mode": The Eighteenth-Century Collections of the Baden Princesses, in K. Tsoumis and V. Sigalas (eds.), A Passion for Porcelain: Essays in Honour of Meredith Chilton, 2020, pp. 56-71;

H. Jacob-Friesen et al., Die Meistersammlerin Karoline Luise von Baden, exh. cat., 2015.