A rare Meissen porcelain tureen from a service with gold "Zwiebelmuster"
Oval scalloped vessel with ram's head handles. The original lid with a tall moulded finial. Decorated throughout with underglaze blue onion motifs painted over in gold. Unglazed base, blue crossed swords mark with K inside, inventory no. "151" in black to the underside. A hairline crack to the body and base, minor firing cracks to the handle bases. H with lid 26.2, W tureen 26.5 cm.
Around 1733/35, the gilding Augsburg, attributed to the workshop of Abraham and Bartholomäus Seuter, around 1740.
This rare tureen, of which only one other example is known, probably originates from a service for Seehof Palace in Memmelsdorf, which was commissioned by the Prince Bishop of Bamberg, Friedrich Karl von Schönborn-Buchheim (1674 - 1746) or his successor Johann Philipp Anton von und zu Frankenstein (1695 - 1753). However, there is no unequivocal evidence of this order in the archives of the palace (according to a statement kindly provided by Dr. Karnatz, the responsible officer of the Bavarian Palace Department). The attribution therefore remains tentative to this day.
Provenance
Collection of Dr. Max Fahrländer, Basel-Riehen.
Private ownership, Winterthur, Switzerland.
From the property of a South German aristocrat.
Literature
Cf. Ducret, Meissner Porzellan bemalt in Augsburg, 1718 bis um 1750, Bd. I, Braunschweig 1971, illus. 338, p. 251 for what is probably the second tureen from the service.
A plate illus. in Hell/Miedtank, Zwiebelmuster. Von den Anfängen bis heute, Dresden 2018, cat. no. 30.