A Meissen porcelain vase with bird and insect decor

A Meissen porcelain vase with bird and insect decor

Painted with two large depictions of birds on flourishing treestumps surrounded by tiny insects. Blue conjoined AR monogram. The neck restored. H 32 cm.
Circa 1745, decor attributed to Christian Gottlob Häntzschel.

Abraham L. den Blaauwen, author of the catalogue of Meissen porcelain in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, was the first to attribute this décor to Christian Gottlob Häntzschel (1709 – 1761). Like Timothy H. Clarke before him, he also refers to Eleazar Albin's "A natural history of birds", published in London in 1734, as the inspiration for the depictions. The manufactory purchased the book in 1745 and appears to have begun basing designs on its illustrations immediately afterwards. Karl Berling published two old photographs of Pförten Palace in around 1900 in which these bird vases, which manufactory director Count Heinrich Brühl had produced for his own residence, can be seen.

Literature

Cf. Berling, das Meissner Porzellan und seine Geschichte, Leipzig 1900, fig. 62 and fig. 153, the bird vases in Pförten Palace.

Cf. Clarke, The Northumberland Service of Meissen Porcelain, in: Keramos 70/1975, illus. 161 ff, various vases with decorative motifs after Eleazar Albin, including the set of vases formerly owned by Dr. Eduard Wallach New York.

Cf. The vase in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam in den Blaauwen, Meissen Porcelain in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 2000, no. 226.

For more on Häntzschel see Rückert, Biographische Daten der Meißener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, Munich 1990, p. 152.