A rare Meissen porcelain plate from the Christie-Miller service
Octagonal plate painted in the centre with a scene of a courtly couple with their servants and children playing ball. The segments of the rim richly decorated with strapwork surrounding scenes of riders and merchants in four reserves. The pierced border with similar reserves in purple camaieu. Blue crossed swords mark, dreher's no. 22. With minor localised wear to the glaze. D 24.5 cm.
Circa 1740.
Sixty one items from a particularly richly decorated dinner service from the estate of S.R. Christie-Miller were auctioned on 7 July 1970, and the service has since been known as the Christie-Miller Service. The outstanding paintings can be attributed to Johann George Heintze, Christian Friedrich Herold and Bonaventura Gottlieb Häuer, who were the leading landscape painters of their time.
Provenance
Acquired from Sotheby's, Geneva on 14th November 1989, lot 11.
Literature
Illus. in cat.: Blütenlese. Meißener Porzellan aus der Sammlung Tono Dreßen, Munich 2018, p. 101.
Cf. cat.: Slg. Hoffmeister, vol.I, Hamburg 1999, no. 96 - 101, p. 182 ff. Hoffmeister mentions the engravings of the Augsburg artist Melchior Küssel as possible prototypes for these designs, "die in zwei Serien in den Jahren 1681 und 1682 von Johann Wilhelm Baur veröffentlicht wurden."
Further items from this service are housed in the Carabelli collection (in: Pietsch, Frühes Meissener Porzellan, Munich 2000, no. 18).
A plate and a bowl from the service sold in Lempertz Cologne auction 819 on 16th May 2002, lot 90 and 91, a further plate in Lempertz Cologne auction 1048 on 15th May 2015, lot 640.