A very rare Meissen B?ttger stoneware black-lacquered hexagonal tea canister and cover, circa 1710-19
Moulded with birds perched on flowering plants and in flight above grassy plateaux, all heightened in gilding and brown lustre, and isolated red fruit to three alternating sides, the cover moulded on the top with a single flower, gilt bands to the side, 12.6cm high, Japanese Palace inventory number 39 in black
注脚
Provenance:The Royal collections of Saxony, Japanese Palace, Dresden (delivered in 1719);Dr. Siegfried Ducret Collection, Zürich;Anon. sale, Christies Geneva, 9 November 1987, lot 143Literature:Sch?nheit des 18. Jahrhunderts. Malerei, Plastik, Porzellan, exhibition catalogue, Zürich Kunsthaus (1955), p. 135, no. P209;Monika Kopplin (ed.), Schwartz Porcelain (2003), no. 76;A. Loesch, "S?chsisch Schwartz laquirtes Porcelain" Das Schwartz glasierte B?ttgersteinzeug im Bestand der Dresdner Porzellansammlung (2013), p. 168, cat. nos. A23/24Exhibited:Zürich, Kunsthaus, 'Sch?nheit des 18. Jahrhunderts', 10 September-6 November 1955, no. P209;Münster, Museum für Lackkunst, 'Schwartz Porcelain', 7 December 2003-7 March 2004;Schlo? Favorite bei Rastatt, 'Schwartz Porcelain', 29 March-27 June 2004The hexagonal baluster form is based on a Dutch or Huguenot silver example, while the relief-moulding in the sides is derived from Chinese Yixing stoneware and blanc-de-chine porcelain. The earliest archival mention of this tea canister is in a list dated 9 August 1719 of stoneware delivered to the Japanese Palace in Dresden. Four such large tea canisters are specified: '4 gro?e Sechspa?igte Theeflaschen mit erhabenen Blumen' [four large hexagonal tea bottles with moulded flowers] (transcribed in Loesch 2013, p. 186). The inventory of the Japanese Palace in Dresden begun in 1721 records four such tea canisters: 'Vier 6.eckigte mit Blumen belegte, und nachmals vergoldte Thee Büch?en, mit runden platen Deckeln 5?. Z: hoch 4. Z: in diam' [four six-sided tea boxes moulded with flowers and additionally gilded, with round flat covers...] (published in B?ttgersteinzeug B?ttgerporzellan aus der Dresdener Porzellansammlung (1969), p. 60. All four were still present at the time of the 1770 and 1779 inventories (quoted by A. Loesch, see above Literature). Two of these tea canisters with the inventory number 39 were in the second sale by the State of Saxony of porcelain and other works of art from the former royal collections, Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus, 12-14 October 1920, lots 113 and 114 (the latter was sold from the collection of Mrs Marjorie West at Christie's New York, 18 October 2017, lot 714); a third, without an inventory number, was in the first sale on 7-8 October 1919, lot 52 (most recently sold at Christie's London, 7 July 1997, lot 289, now in a North American private collection).