An important set of seven Meissen porcelain plates with scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses
The entire well painted with a scene of figures and architecture in a mountainous landscape surrounded by a gilt lace border. Inscribed below:
"Jupiter in Clistus amorem in=cidit"
"In loco destinato Pyramu occisuThisbe videns, Se quoque occidit"
"Argus à Mercurio capite trun=catur"
"Cephalus Progrim sagitta transfixit"
"Adamas et Ino fiunt insani per Tisiphonem"
"Deflet Amasium suum Adonidem Venus"
"Argum Mercurius Somniantum reddit" Blue crossed swords mark, dreher's number 22. Slight wear to the gilt edging, the mass of some of the plates slightly impure. D 23.3 cm.
Mid-18th C., model by Johann Joachim Kaendler, decoration attributed to Franz Ferdinand Mayer in Pressnitz / Prísecnice.
Provenance
Auctioned by Christie´s London, 6th October 1986, lot 174.
Auctioned by Christie´s London, 6th March 1995, lot 216. (plate with Jupiter falling in love with Callisto).
Collection of Renate and Tono Dreßen.
Literature
Illustrated in cat. Blütenlese Meißener Porzellan aus der Sammlung Tono Dreßen, Berlin-Munich 2018, illus. 101 – 104.
For similarly unusual and finely executed decoration by the Bohemian-Czech workshop see Gielke, Meissener Porzellan des 18., und 19. Jahrhunderts Bestandskatalog des Grassimuseums Leipzig/ Museum für Kunsthandwerk, Leipzig 2003, no. 240 and 256.
Cf. also Cassidy-Geiger, The Arnhold Collection of Meissen Porcelain 1710 -50, New York-London 2008, no. 329 ff.
Cf. also Pietsch, Early Meissen Porcelain The Wark Collection, London 2011, no. 679.