A Meissen porcelain ewer with snowball decor
A monumental pitcher. Fired in two pieces, screw-mounted and cemented together. Encrusted throughout with white snowball flowers and protruding umbels. Entwined with trailing vines populated by a myriad of lively exotic and continental birds. The golden orioles, goldfinches, and linnets with naturalistic plumage, the cockatoos with fancifully coloured decor. The handle fashioned as a ribbon-tied bundle of reeds and vines, the rim and base gilt. Blue crossed swords mark with cancellation, "B." in black, incised "118 C." and "59". Minor chips to the leaves and birds. A firing crack to the interior. H 63.7 cm.
Late 19th C., based on a model by Johann Joachim Kaendler.
Inspired by Asian porcelain designs, Johann Joachim Kaendler developed the “snowball” flower decor for Meissen around 1739. It was used since then as surface decoration for all manner of porcelain vessels, often enlivened with tendrils populated by insects and birds. The birds were frequently based on models previously designed by Kaendler as single figures perching on stumps. Kaendler designed the model of these ewers in the 1730s, and the form without the snowball flowers was used to great effect to represent "water" in a series of allegorical vases depicting the four elements. The form with the snowballs was probably developed after the Seven Years' War - possibly for a Prussian order.
Literature
A ewer of this type illus. in: Festschrift der königlich Sächsischen Porzellanmanufaktur Meissen 1910, p. 57.