A Meissen porcelain Augustus Rex vase with famille verte decor on yellow ground
Oviform vessel with short cylindrical neck and associated cover. Painted with landscapes with chrysanthemum bushes, prunus trees, rocks, birds in flight, lotus flowers and waterfowl in purple-rimmed surrounds. Blue conjoined AR mark. H 33 cm without cover. The cover conforming but not original, with pinecone finial and chinoiserie decor.
Around 1730.
The shape and decoration of this vase correspond to that of the Chinese covered pots with underglaze blue ground in the collection of Augustus the Strong in Dresden, which have not survived. The king ordered several copies of the Chinese versions from Meissen in around 1729/30 in order to be able to present them in symmetrical arrangements on wall brackets in the Japanese Palace to realise his vision of a porcelain palace.
We know of a total of two of these vases with yellow ground and the same decoration; two further vases of the same form with yellow ground and Shiba Onkô decoration in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. BK-17375-A/B), described by den Blaauwen (Amsterdam 2000, cat. no. 140 f) and two with cobalt blue ground kept in the Dresden Porcelain Collection (SKD inv. no. PE 1335 and PE 1336), described in detail by Julia Weber (vol. II, p. 331 ff.) She also mentions Lemaire's vase orders, which were produced at the same time and with similar decoration, but not in this form.
Like the three yellow ground vases, the two with blue ground and another green specimen (PE 1768 a, b) in the Dresden porcelain collection, this piece also bears the conjoined AR monogram as an abbreviation for Augustus Rex, i.e. the royal Polish owner's mark. The special style of the mark applied here, which we know in different variations, is very striking. We find comparable marks on a birdcage vase in the SKD porcelain collection (inv. no. PE 806) and on the pair of yellow-ground vases formerly in the Dr Fritz Mannheimer Collection in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. BK-17375-A/B).
Literature
Cf. two identical vases without purple outlines of the reserves in the porcelain collection of the Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden (inv. nos. PE 658 and 659).
The pair of vases formerly in the collection of Dr Fritz Mannheimer in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. BK-17375-A/B), illustrated in Blaauwen, Meissen Porcelain in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 2000, cat. no. 140 f.
For information on the context in which this type of vase with famille verte decoration was ordered by Augustus the Strong in 1729/30, see Weber, Meißener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern, vol. II, Munich 2013, cat. no. 320, p. 331 ff.