A Meissen porcelain writing set formed as a cottage
With fire-gilt bronze mountings. The base richly encrusted with flowers and foliage and set into a pierced bronze rocaille plinth. Steps lead down from the cottage to a trough in the front and beside it a well for ink with a pulley for a bucket. The roof of the house with a large porcelain chimney and a portre montre in the form of a dovecote concealing a pounce box. The clock with a white enamel dial and small pierced and gilded hands. Blue crossed swords mark. Chips to the leaves and fingers, minor retouches. Some of the bronze branches defective. The enamel of the clock dial chipped, a soldered repair to the plate. H 18.3, W 23, D 20.5 cm.
Circa 1754, model by Johann Joachim Kaendler and Johann Gottlieb Ehder, 1741. The bronze mountings attributed to Paris, circa 1755.
Literature
Illus. in cat.: Blütenlese. Meißener Porzellan aus der Sammlung Tono Dreßen, Munich 2018, p. 19, no. 2.
Two further examples without the bronze mountings listed as "house with winch" in the Ritter Kempski von Rakoszyn collection (in: Kunze-Köllensperger, Das Holländische Dorf aus Meissener Porzellan. Dessert de luxe bei Graf von Brühl, Munich 2015, no. 20).
Cf. also cat.: Triumph der blauen Schwerter, Dresden-Leipzig 2010, no. 306.
The piece is described in Kaendler's workshop records on March 1743 as "Vor den Herren Ober Land Bau Meister Knöffeln ein durch brochenes Garten Hauß aus dem gröpsten Poußiret und angeleget, solches aber hernach dem Bildhauer Ödern folgendes zu Verfertigen gegeben." (Pietsch, Leipzig 2002, p. 78).