A Berlin KPM porcelain tête à tête in the Egyptian taste - image-1
A Berlin KPM porcelain tête à tête in the Egyptian taste - image-2
A Berlin KPM porcelain tête à tête in the Egyptian taste - image-3
A Berlin KPM porcelain tête à tête in the Egyptian taste - image-4
A Berlin KPM porcelain tête à tête in the Egyptian taste - image-5
A Berlin KPM porcelain tête à tête in the Egyptian taste - image-1A Berlin KPM porcelain tête à tête in the Egyptian taste - image-2A Berlin KPM porcelain tête à tête in the Egyptian taste - image-3A Berlin KPM porcelain tête à tête in the Egyptian taste - image-4A Berlin KPM porcelain tête à tête in the Egyptian taste - image-5

Lot 29 Dα

A Berlin KPM porcelain tête à tête in the Egyptian taste

Auction 1125 - overview Berlin
07.11.2018, 18:00 - The Twinight Collection I
Estimate: 40.000 € - 60.000 €
Result: 60.000 € (incl. premium)

A Berlin KPM porcelain tête à tête in the Egyptian taste

Unidentified model. Comprising tray, teapot, coffee pot, sugar box, milk jug, and two cups and saucers. The rectangular tray with chamferred edges. The handles formed as crocodiles, the handles of the lids as sphinxes. The modelled decor and borders painted to imitate green stone. Decorated with stylised lotus blooms picked out in gilt and pseudo-hieroglyphs in brick red. Blue sceptre mark with overglaze blue dash beside, various impressed marks, the cups with 74 in gilt. Coffee pot H 19.6, tray W 37 cm.
Circa 1810.

Napoleon's expedition to the Nile in 1798 to 1801 spawned a trend in Europe for all things Egyptian. The results of the research carried out during the trip were published by Dominique-Vivant Denon in the multiple-volume work “Description de L'Égypte”, which formed the basis of the emerging discipline of Egyptology. After Sèvres, KPM was one of the next manufactories to be inspired by the new source of motifs. They created an Egyptian tea and coffee service in 1809 comprising a “coffee pot with crocodile handles and an Egyptian eagle spout, a teapot with crocodile handles and a sugar cane spout, a smooth sugar box with a sphinx head finial (this finial also used for the coffee and teapots), a milk jug with a crocodile handle and a smooth spout”. Henri Rivet de la Grange, porcelain designer at KPM, also sought his inspiration in Denon's publication, and the service was presented at the academy exhibition in 1810 to great acclaim. The present work is the only existing service of its kind.

Provenance

Private collection, West Germany, sold by Lempertz Berlin, auction 1065, 30th April 2016, lot 48.

Literature

Wittwer (ed.), Raffinesse & Eleganz, Munich 2007, p. 66, illus. 70.