A museum quality Vienna porcelain tea bowl and saucer painted by Ignaz Preissler
The tea bowl decorated with a European forest and river landscape with buildings and a stag hunt. The interior with strapwork and four Chinoiserie figures seated on palm fronds, peacocks and arrangements of porcelain items. The upper face of the saucer with a depiction of Diana discovering the pregnancy of Callisto, the underside with Pan and Syrinx and a flowering tendril around the border. Unmarked. Minor chips to the rim of the tea bowl. H tea bowl 4, D saucer 12.4 cm.
The depiction of an oak forest with hunters and deer around the outside of the tea bowl follows an engraving by Aegidius Sadeler II (1570 - 1629) after a painting by Roelandt Savery (1576 - 1639). The depiction of a small church on a rock by the river directly beside it goes back to a motif by Paul Bril (1554 - 1626) engraved by Johannes Sadeler. "Diana discovering the pregnancy of Callisto" copies an engraving by Pieter Jansz. Saenredam from 1599, masterfully reproduced in all details in the concave centre of the saucer. Annedore Müller-Hofstede has also found a graphic model for the Chinoiserie in the base of the saucer, namely a plafond design by P.P. Bacqueville (1601 - 1700) from the "Livre d'Ornemens propres pour les meubles et pour les Peintres", from around 1720.
Her research proves that Ignaz Preissler (1676 - 1741), who came from a Silesian family of glass painters, knew how to skilfully and precisely transpose motifs from engravings onto porcelain and, by combining and adapting them, create new motifs that clearly bear his signature. His mastery of all the techniques of monochrome painting, as demonstrated in this little tea bowl and saucer, helped him to achieve these creative feats.
Provenance
Collection of Paquita Kowalski-Tannert (1890 - 1970).
Collection of Dr. Annedore Müller-Hofstede.
Literature
Illus. in Müller-Hofstede, Der schlesisch-böhmische Hausmaler Ignaz Preissler, in: Keramos 100/1983, illus. 2 -9.