An important signed Berlin KPM porcelain krater-form vase with a view of Unter den Linden
With the original metal mounting ring. Model no. 1005, "Medicis/Rhedensche Sorte". Fired in two parts and screw-mounted. Decorated with an unusual richly populated view of the famous street in Berlin, seen from the West, in an angular palmette frame. To the reverse Biedermeier foliage on pastel coloured ground. Signed in the lower left of the depiction "J. Forst f.", blue sceptre mark, brown eagle mark. Retouches to the shaft below the mounting ring. H 42.8, with plinth 57 cm. The associated antique plinth decorated with gilt tendrils on forest green ground, with blue sceptre mark and red imperial eagle.
1824 delivered to the Duke of Calabria, later King of both Sicilies, painted by Johann Eusebius Anton Forst; the plinth after 1832.
This rare aspect shows the eastern side of the avenue at the level of the opera, with Brandenburg Gate in the background but without the royal palaces. It is probably based on an etching by Friedrich August Schmidt after a drawing by Friedrich August Calau (Ponert, p. 119). This vase form is known as the “Rhedensche Vase” after Friedrich Wilhelm Graf von Reden (1752 - 1815). The Silesian Head Mine Inspector became a member of the manufactory commission in 1798, but was dismissed without pension by King Frederick William IV in 1806 for conspiring with the occupying French troops in 1807. He still sent a letter of resignation to the Royal Manufactory, published by Köllmann in 1966: “According to the attached written cabinet order d.d. Memel of 26th August c., his royal majesty has dispensed with my services. The fervent and focussed efforts of a royal commission and the manufactory direction will do much to conserve and improve the artistic efforts of this important establishment, even in the current difficult situation (…) Buchwald, 12th September 1807 von Reden” (p. 65). His dismissal appears to have been upsetting to all those involved, but his legacy lives on in this eponymous vase design, which KPM still produces to this day.
Provenance
Both pieces inscribed in black lacquer: "Slg. H./G. R 1973 / 4", the Rohloff Collection, Berlin. The legendary collector probably purchased the vase from Leo Spik KG in Berlin, auction 477 in April 1979 (lot 732).
Auctioned by Christie´s London, A Century of Berlin, on 1st May 2002, lot 123.
Literature
Illus. in: Köllmann / Jarchow, Berliner Porzellan, vol. II, Munich 1987, illus. 546 and on the dustjacket of the text volume.
An almost identically decorated smaller krater-form vase in the Berlin Museum (in: Ponert, cat. Berlin Museum, Berlin 1985, no. 113).