A museum quality pair of Meissen porcelain vases with Chinoiserie decor
A museum quality pair of Meissen porcelain vases with Chinoiserie decor
"Gu"-form vases with flaring rims and bulbous centres decorated with Chinoiserie relief designs of flowering sprigs, rocks and an exotic bird perching on a leaf. One smoothed base with blue crossed swords mark, one glazed recessed base, both incised with alchemists' marks. The vase with blue mark with re-inserted V-shaped breakage at the top. The vase without the swords mark with a circular firing crack around the base and a restoration to the upper rim and basal ring. H 41.7 cm.
1730s.
The alchemist's mark of a triangle with a cross standing on its apex denotes sulphur, one of the "Three Primes", together with mercury and salt. Rainer Rückert published this rare mark on a model of a peacock in the Historisches Museum Bern (inv. no. 28137), which was probably moulded in 1732, and on five other examples in the Munich Residenz. These models, which imitate East Asian porcelain figures, are today usually attributed to the moulders Georg Fritzsche (1697/98 - 1756) or Gottlieb Schmahl, who joined the manufactory in 1723.
These "pseudo" Asian products and actual copies of Asian models, which include the two vases presented here, were generally produced after 1729. This new focus was due to the influence of the French merchant Rudolphe Lemaire, who wanted to sell such pieces in France as true Asian porcelain.
The connection between Lemaire's order in Meissen and the porcelain with the alchemist's mark was already mentioned by Rainer Rückert in his 1996 essay. It is possible that these vases were delivered to Lemaire, as only one bears the underglaze blue sword mark.
Another baluster-form vase and cover with a very similar mass consistency and the same relief decoration, formerly in the Ernst Schneider collection, is now housed in the Hetjens Museum Düsseldorf. This vase, however, bears the AR mark, but was almost certainly produced around the same time.
The model can be traced back to Chinese "gu" bronze vessels from the Shang and Zhou periods. There are several painted Chinese vases of the same shape from the Kangxi era in the Dresden Porcelain Collection.
Provenance
Christie's London, 14th June 1994, lot 199.
Literature
On the former's mark, see Rückert, Alchemistische Symbolzeichen als Meißener Masse-, Former-, Bossierer- und Drehermarken im vierten Jahrzehnt des 18. Jahrhunderts, in: Keramos 151/96, p. 75, fig. 11, mark 11 and p. 85 ff.
Cf. Pietsch, Meissener Porzellan und seine ostasiatischen Vorbilder, Leipzig 1996, fig. 40, the white vase with the AR mark in the Dresden Porcelain Collection, inv. no. P. E. 7698.
A similar vase formerly in the Just Collection (today Uměleckoprůmyslové Museum Prague).
Bid on this lot
A museum quality pair of Meissen porcelain vases with Chinoiserie decor
"Gu"-form vases with flaring rims and bulbous centres decorated with Chinoiserie relief designs of flowering sprigs, rocks and an exotic bird perching on a leaf. One smoothed base with blue crossed swords mark, one glazed recessed base, both incised with alchemists' marks. The vase with blue mark with re-inserted V-shaped breakage at the top. The vase without the swords mark with a circular firing crack around the base and a restoration to the upper rim and basal ring. H 41.7 cm.
1730s.
The alchemist's mark of a triangle with a cross standing on its apex denotes sulphur, one of the "Three Primes", together with mercury and salt. Rainer Rückert published this rare mark on a model of a peacock in the Historisches Museum Bern (inv. no. 28137), which was probably moulded in 1732, and on five other examples in the Munich Residenz. These models, which imitate East Asian porcelain figures, are today usually attributed to the moulders Georg Fritzsche (1697/98 - 1756) or Gottlieb Schmahl, who joined the manufactory in 1723.
These "pseudo" Asian products and actual copies of Asian models, which include the two vases presented here, were generally produced after 1729. This new focus was due to the influence of the French merchant Rudolphe Lemaire, who wanted to sell such pieces in France as true Asian porcelain.
The connection between Lemaire's order in Meissen and the porcelain with the alchemist's mark was already mentioned by Rainer Rückert in his 1996 essay. It is possible that these vases were delivered to Lemaire, as only one bears the underglaze blue sword mark.
Another baluster-form vase and cover with a very similar mass consistency and the same relief decoration, formerly in the Ernst Schneider collection, is now housed in the Hetjens Museum Düsseldorf. This vase, however, bears the AR mark, but was almost certainly produced around the same time.
The model can be traced back to Chinese "gu" bronze vessels from the Shang and Zhou periods. There are several painted Chinese vases of the same shape from the Kangxi era in the Dresden Porcelain Collection.
Provenance
Christie's London, 14th June 1994, lot 199.
Literature
On the former's mark, see Rückert, Alchemistische Symbolzeichen als Meißener Masse-, Former-, Bossierer- und Drehermarken im vierten Jahrzehnt des 18. Jahrhunderts, in: Keramos 151/96, p. 75, fig. 11, mark 11 and p. 85 ff.
Cf. Pietsch, Meissener Porzellan und seine ostasiatischen Vorbilder, Leipzig 1996, fig. 40, the white vase with the AR mark in the Dresden Porcelain Collection, inv. no. P. E. 7698.
A similar vase formerly in the Just Collection (today Uměleckoprůmyslové Museum Prague).
