Superbly painted with the arms over a continuous Kauffahrtei scene depicting merchants and their wares by a quayside, the interior and footrim gilt. 7cm high, crossed swords mark within two concentric circles in underglaze-blue
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Provenance:Gift of Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, to his eldest daughter, Maria Amalia, on the occasion of her wedding to Charles VII, King of Naples;The Property of Mrs. Dreyfus, Sotheby's London, 7 July 1970, lot 145;Dr. Albert Weitnauer Collection, Bern, sold Christie's Geneva, 11 November 1985, lot 351;The Hoffmeister Collection, Hamburg, sold in these Rooms, 25 November 2009, lot 85Literature:D. Hoffmeister, Meissener Porzellan des 18. Jahrhunderts, II (1999), no. 318Exhibited:Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, The Hoffmeister Collection, 1999-2009The wedding of Princess Maria Amalia of Saxony (1724-1760) and Charles VII (1716-1788) took place by proxy in Dresden in May 1738. The same month, Maria Amalia travelled to Naples to meet her husband, accompanied by her sixteen-year-old brother, Crown Prince Friedrich Christian, who was embarking on his Grand Tour of Italy, including a visit to Naples to seek treatment for a spinal condition (M. Cassidy-Geiger, 'Je re?u ce Soir le monde marqué': A Crown Prince of Saxony on the Grand Tour in Italy, 1738-1750, The International Fine Arts and Antique Dealers Show Handbook (2004), pp. 21-31).The new queen apparently received from her father a gift of a silver toilet service, which included six teabowls and saucers and six chocolate beakers. A Meissen manufactory specification of 17 April 1738, records that '6 Schaelgen und Coppgen inwendig gantz verguld, mit dem Koenigl. Pohl. Saechs. und Sicilianischen Wappen 6 Choclate Becer beides in die grosse Toilett gehoerig [...] annoch in Arbeit und zu liefern' (6 saucers and bowls completely gilt on the inside, with the Royal Polish Saxon and Sicilian arms 6 chocolate beaker both belonging to the large toilet [...] still in production and to be delivered) (quoted by Boltz (1978), p. 5; see also M. Cassidy-Geiger, Princes and Porcelain on the Grand Tour of Italy, Fragile Diplomacy (2007), p. 218 and n. 50). A lavish gift of porcelain to mark the occasion was also made to Charles VII's mother, Elizabeth Farnese, Queen of Spain (Boltz 1978; M. Cassidy-Geiger (2007), pp. 213ff).No silver apparently survives from this toilet service, which was probably silver-gilt, and it may have been melted down (Cassidy-Geiger 2007, n. 50). Including the present lot, only three beakers and four teabowls are recorded in the literature: two other beakers were sold by Christie's London, 2 December 1974 (one was in the Marouf Collection, the other is in the Malcolm D. Gutter collection); and a total of four teabowls, of which two were sold by Christie's London, 11 May 1987, lot 188 (of which one was previously sold by Christie's London, 2 December 1974, while the second has been in the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche di Faenza since 1994), and two sold from the Ernesto Blohm collection (Christie's London, 10 April 1989, lot 31, previously sold by Sotheby's London, 7 July 1970, lot 146).