An early Meissen porcelain tea bowl with palace inventory number - image-1
An early Meissen porcelain tea bowl with palace inventory number - image-2
An early Meissen porcelain tea bowl with palace inventory number - image-1An early Meissen porcelain tea bowl with palace inventory number - image-2

Lot 479 Dα

An early Meissen porcelain tea bowl with palace inventory number

Auction 1086 - overview Cologne
19.05.2017, 14:00 - Decorative Arts II
Estimate: 4.000 € - 6.000 €
Result: 3.100 € (incl. premium)
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An early Meissen porcelain tea bowl with palace inventory number

Thin-walled cup with flared rim and original saucer. Finely decorated with "three friends of winter" motif (pine, bamboo, and plum), and a plum blossom to the saucer. Blue enamel crossed swords mark, engraved N=243 w., with dreher's mark of Johann Martin Kittel jun. to the bowl.
1729 - 31.

This finely painted teabowl has an interesting, chequered history. The small piece was evidently among those ordered without the crossed swords mark by the French merchant Lemaire to be sold illicitly as Japanese porcelain in Paris. The estate of one Count Hoym, who was involved in the affair, was confiscated in April 1731 after the scam was found out, but no porcelain with this decor was discovered there. August II must have found this service subsequently and applied the enamel mark together with the cancelled number as a palace inventory mark.

Literature

For this motif cf.: Weber, Meißener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern, vol. II, Munich 2013, p. 237 ff.
Cf. also: den Blaauwen, Meissen Porcelain in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 2000, no. 169.