A Royal Berlin KPM porcelain vase with a painting reproduction
"Französische Vase No 4" model, fired in two parts and screw-mounted. Decorated to the display side with a Baroque scene of a man and a boy playing a drum by a window in a gilt surround. With palmette and tendril decor throughout and a drapery motif to the neck. Blue sceptre mark, red imperial orb mark, incised beneath the body III. H 68 cm.
1833 - 40, the decor designed by Johann Heinrich Strack, 1833.
This is a particularly fascinating object and unusual in a number of ways. Strack designed this decor for a Munich form vase but instead it was used for this large French form. We know of no other examples of this type. This vase was certainly a royal commission. However, the archives provide no further clues as to its recipient as information such as this was frequently lost throughout history.
The scene could be the painting "Der Lehrende Grossvater, Eigene Erfindung, Oelbild" (The Teaching Grandfather, Own Invention, Oil Painting) by Heinrich Loewenstein, who was represented at every Academy exhibition between 1830 and 1840, listed under no. 476 in the Berlin Academy Exhibition in 1834.
Another, long lost painting by the painter, which was considered a war loss of the Prussian castles and was discovered and returned by Gerd Bartoschek after the Elbe flood in the depot of the Dresden Gallery, shows a grandfather in similar costume. It is titled "Ein Feldhauptmann mit seiner Sohn" (A Field Governor with His Son) and now hangs as an acquisition of Friedrich Wilhelm III in his apartment in Charlottenburg Palace.
We thank Dr. Burkhardt Göres for the helpful information about this lot.
Provenance
Family owned since 1959.
Literature
An identical signed and dated decor design for an unknown "Münchner Vase Sorte No 3" by Strack in: Baer/Baer, ....auf allerhöchsten Befehl..., Berlin 1983, no. 22 (KPM-Archiv, Schloss Charlottenburg, Mappe 146, no. 59).