Decorators of Ceramics and Glass

CERAMICS AND GLASS DECORATORS OF

IN D EPE N DE N T , I T IN E RAN T AND THE H A US MA LE R

COLD DECORATION

NUREMBERG

3. EARLY DECORATION ON MEISSEN PORCELAIN

4. DANIEL AND IGNAZ PREISSLER

5. IGNAZ BOTTENGRUBER AND HIS FOLLOWERS IN SILESIA

AUGSBURG

OTHER GERMAN HAUSMALER

THE NETHERLANDS

FRENCH GOLD DECORATION

INTRODUCTION

The brilliant white surfaces of porcelain and tin-glazed earthenware were an enticing canvas for artists who had mastered the art of enamelling. Fired enamels on such a ground can capture colour like no other. In this catalogue we have chosen to cast our net widely to cover a range of small-scale independent artists working across Europe who chose ceramics and glass as their canvas.

Unlike the large bottle kilns required for firing ceramics with its attendant infrastructure, a muffle kiln designed to vitrify enamels at 800 degrees centigrade could be small, perhaps a metre square, suitable for a small workshop or back garden.

The art of enamelling on metal is ancient, it was brought to perfection on glass in the Islamic world of the 13th and 14th centuries and in Venice shortly after. The glass enamellers of Germany were able to transfer this technology to stoneware and subsequently onto faience (tin-glazed earthenware) in Nuremberg in the second half of the 17th century. As porcelain became available to decorators it gradually superseded faience. Initially it was porcelain from China and to a small extent, Japan, but it was difficult to find entirely white pieces to work on. The exception was the blanc de chine porcelains of Dehua, but these came in a limited range of forms and tended to be rather thickly potted. The advent of European porcelain with the establishment of Meissen in the early decades of the 18th century opened up a new supply of white wares in forms designed for Europe, these became the most widely used in the Germanspeaking lands. The white undecorated Meissen porcelains that became available were often those pieces rejected by the manufactory either because of minor imperfections or because the shapes were no longer current. The non-standard Meissen forms used by German hausmaler (literally home painters) have often led to them being misdescribed as Viennese porcelain of the Du Paquier period, but this is rarely the case.

We have extended the scope of this study to include aspects

of the large enamelling industries of the Netherlands and England, with a detour into the rare work of the goldsmiths and jewellers of Paris who enriched white porcelains with gold. We have also included a few examples of the itinerant artists who moved from factory to factory. It is a point worth noting that in the early days of a factory, when they were struggling to master the manufacture of porcelain, they would not have had skilled enamellers idly awaiting its arrival. The earliest porcelains must either have been sent out to independent workshops or decorated by artist newly summoned for the purpose.

As a subject, the study of these independent decorators has often fallen between the cracks of the literature on the great ceramic manufacturers, it is too disparate a subject to lend itself to tidy scholarship. The last great comprehensive survey of The hausmaler of the German-speaking world, that of Gustav Pazaurek, was published almost a hundred years ago in 1925. Since then, the study has progressed with important publications on Nuremberg hausmaler by Helmut Bosch and on the Preisslers by Maureen Cassidy-Geiger and A. Müller-Hofstede. Further recent work by Helena Brožková and colleagues at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague has clarified much of the story of Daniel Preissler and his son Ignaz that had previously been ambiguous and confused. Sebastian Kuhn published an important survey through a Viennese lens of The Hausmaler, in ‘Fired by Passion, Vienna Baroque Porcelain of Claudius Innocentius du Paquier’ in 2009. We hope that the extensive work by Alessandro Biancalana will be published before long.

We were able to bring some clarity to the subject of the French decorators in a paper written for the French Porcelain Society in 2011, and to the previously overlooked early decorators of Chinese porcelain in England in the Transactions of the English Ceramic Circle in 2005. The study of the English decorators has been much extended by Bernard Watney and Roger Massey. We also identified the group of work produced by the Dutch decorator who we christened the ‘Fine-Line’ painter published in The Transactions of The Oriental Ceramic Society in 2001. Another very notable addition is Helen Espir’s, European Decoration on Oriental Porcelain: 1700-1830, of 2005.

Our modern obsession with artistic originality blinds us to the intention of artist-craftsmen of the past. Their aim was to produce an object that was precious, beautiful and which inspired delight, and crucially, which could make them a profit. If that meant borrowing a design here or a new enamel there, so much the better. It was the beauty, and saleability, of the final object that mattered more than originality of design. That is not to say that they lacked creativity, the ornamental arrangements of the Preisslers and Ignaz Bottengruber and the inventive wit of Johann Gregorius Höroldt and Jeffreyes Hammet O’Neale attest to that.

No commercial venture such as this could hope to fully represent this vast subject, but we hope we have been able to give a flavour of the fascinating range and curious byways that one stumbles across in its pursuit.

Errol, Henriette and Henry Manners

Acknowledgements

We have had the pleasure of discussing this subject with scholars and friends over many years amongst whom we would like to thank for their insights and help with aspects of this catalogue: Alessandro Biancalana, Sebastain Blank, Jana Černovská, Aileen Dawson, Anthony du Boulay, Jan Daniel van dam, Giles Ellwood, Helen Espir, Anton Gabsewicz, Antony Griffiths, Malcom Gutter, Katharina Hantschmann, Masao Iketani, Monika Kopplin, Sebastian Kuhn, John Mallet, Roger Massey, Cristina Maritano, Nette Megens, Rick Pardue, Philippe Sacerdot, Simon Spier, Filip Suchomel, Peter Vogt, Julia Weber, John Whitehead, Sir Thomas Woodcock, and particularly Maureen Cassidy-Geiger for her valuable comments and guidance.

SECTION ONE

COLD

DECORATION

CATALOGUE ENTRY 1

The easiest, and least satisfactory, way to decorate porcelain is by the application of unfired pigments, oil-based paint and gilding. This decoration is easily abraded and liable to degrade.

It was a common practice to enhance Chinese blanc de chine figures and examples have survived in late 17th century contexts in situations where they have suffered little handling. It is assumed that much of this type of decoration was done by the Dutch as they were the main importers of Chinese porcelain, but there is little evidence for this, and it could have been done anywhere.

There is even evidence that some Chinese blanc de chine figures were coloured before they arrived in Europe. Geoffrey Godden listed the private trade goods from the East Indiaman ‘Dashwood’ sold in London on 23 March 1703 with many blanc de chine figures which included: [1]

21 Dutch familyes       2s 6d

29 white     ,,

Implying that some were coloured. This can only be unfired decoration.

The ‘Dutch familyes’ refer to figures like these which are sometimes known as ‘Governor Duff’ groups, these do indeed occur with unfired decoration which was surely not done by a Chinese hand. The Dashwood sailed from the port of Xiamen, known to the British as Amoy, which was 140 miles from Dehua. Perhaps the decoration was added by a European at the depot in Amoy whilst waiting for the trade winds and the journey home.

We represent this class of decoration with one piece which certainly was decorated in Europe.

Errol Manners

[1] Godden 1979 pp. 266-268.

Left British Museum, Donelly Bequest Blanc de chine, Dehua, ‘Dutch familyes’ circa 1700

Right Palazzo Pitti, Florence Blanc de chine, Dehua, ‘Dutch familyes’ circa 1700

A COLD-PAINTED BROWN-GLAZED MUG

The porcelain China, Jingdezhen, circa 1690

The decoration probably Germany, circa 1710

Height 8.7 cm

This uncommon form has a brown glaze, sometimes referred to as a Batavian or capucine, on the exterior and is decorated with a floral meander in underglaze blue in the interior.

The cold decoration is executed in red, black and gold with Chinese figures on pedestals within ornamental baroque borders. The Chinese figures loosely derive from the type of images of China popularised by Johan Nieuhof and Elias Baeck which were published in Augsburg and Amsterdam. The formal baroque strapwork suggests that this was painted in Germany.

Provenance

Anthony du Boulay Collection

· Paolo Lukacs, Rome

SECTION TWO

NUREMBERG

CATALOGUE ENTRIES 2 – 4

NUREMBERG

After the devastation of the Thirty Years War (1616-1648), Nuremberg bounced back with a period of economic boom which fostered a demand for precious objects. This attracted craftsmen for luxury goods that included goldsmiths and artists on glass who were drawn by the high-quality glass being produced there. From amongst these craftsmen emerged a group of Hausmaler or ‘home-painters’.

The glassworkers brought their ability to enamel, and the goldsmiths brought their expertise in decorating with colourful enamels on metal and were able to transfer these techniques to the white tin-glazed surface of faience using muffle kilns which were small enough to be used on a cottage-industry scale.[1]

In around 1660, Johann Schaper (1631-1679) was the first artist to transfer the art of schwarzlot decoration from flat glass (Tafelglas) to form glass (Hohlglas), which, as Helmut Bosch points out, shows all the characteristics of a mature style [2]

Within a few years he was also producing works on faience. While he was predominantly a glass decorator, this may have had more to do with access to materials than preference. There was no faience production in Nuremberg at this time, whereas there was a strong glass industry. Schaper procured most of his white faience from the Delft potters of the Netherlands. He and other early Nuremberg hausmaler also used faience from Hanau and Frankfurt.

After Schaper others followed; Herman Benckert (1652-1681), Abraham Helmhack (1654–1724) and Johann Ludwig Faber

(active 1678–97) were glass decorators, Johann Heel (1637-1709) and Wolfgang Rossler (1655-1717) were goldsmiths. Such was the draw of Nuremberg as a rich city for craftsmanship that of these decorators Rossler was the only one to have been born in the city. There were other anonymous artists working on faience, but it seems to have been a small band of people who had the artistic and technical capabilities to produce these wares.

Working as an independent artist in the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg the hausmaler were able to sign their work, which they frequently did, unlike some other hausmaler who operated as court artists.

[1] See Bosch 1984, pp. 11-13 for a more in-depth introduction to The hausmaler production of Nuremberg.

[2] See Bosch 1984, p. 15.

Top

The earliest dated example of Johann Schaper’s work on form glass, dated 1660 and bearing the Monogram IS, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, (inv. No. 11/157.1-2).

It was not until 1712 that a faience factory was established in Nuremberg which provided a ready source of material to work on. Of the named Nuremberg hausmaler, only Helmack and M. Schmid (active c. 1720-30) were still alive to work on Nuremberg faience.

By this time, the practice of hausmaler decoration had extended beyond Nuremberg, notably to the Seuter family of Augsburg, who were perhaps better known for their work on Meissen porcelain, but also produced wonderfully colourful and exuberant jugs. Most are unsigned, but there are at least three examples that bear the initials BS, indicating the hand of Bartholomeus Seuter rather than his brother Abraham.

As more faience factories appeared in the 18th century, workers moved from factory to factory, bringing their individual styles; sometimes working for the factory and sometimes as independent decorators. The most original of these itinerant decorators was Adam Friedrich von Löwenfinck (1714-1754), who worked at Meissen, then Bayreuth (1736-37),

Ansbach (1737), possibly Chantilly (1738), Potsdam (1738), Fulda (1741-45), where he is thought to have produced porcelain, and then Höchst (1746-49) where he played a part in founding the factory with the promise of producing porcelain, which the factory only succeeded in doing after he left. [3]

By the middle of the 18th century faience factories had established their own decorating workshops and porcelain had taken over as the medium of choice for most hausmaler, a few continued to work on faience. Some of the best quality faience was being produced at Künersberg (1745-c.1767), where they seem to have produced some pieces in the white expressly for hausmaler. While most of these hausmaler remain anonymous, there are two tankards signed Anna Elizabeth Wald (née Aufenwerth, b. 1696) from the Augsburg family of porcelain decorators which bear the date 1748. [4]

While our group of pieces focusses on the production and decoration of faience in Germany, the circumstances that lead to outside decoration are the same everywhere.

The technical and artistic capability to decorate pottery is not the same as making the pottery itself. Two hundred years earlier in Renaissance Italy, the Gubbio workshop lustred maiolica painted in Urbino. The Netherlands was no different, most notably Frederik van Frijtom was given permission within the guild system to work as an independent artist, and an artist of the stature of Sir James Thornhill (b. 1696) decorated a series of plates on his visit to the Netherlands in 1711 (BM1889,0706.63). We include just one piece of Delftware (no. 8) that we suggest might be the work of an interesting innovator, Jeremias Godtling (1642-1703).

Henry Manners

[3] See Pietsch 2014.

[4] See Ducret 1971, vol. II, pp. 104-105, pl. 84-86.

Opposite left Schaper on faience, formerly E&H Manners Right Tankard by Wolfgang Rossler in the Hamburg Kunstegwerbemuseum

A GERMAN ‘B AN D W U RM ’ GLASS WITH A VIEW OF BRESLAU

Decorated in Nuremberg

Circa mid 18th century

Height 24 cm

Painted in schwarzlot with a view of Breslau, now Wroclaw in Poland, by Friedrich Bernhard Werner (1690-1776) published by Martin Engelbrecht (1684-1756) in 1736 in Topographia Seu Compendium Silesiae

Friedrich Bernhard Werner was a Silesian-born artist who devoted almost his entire life to capturing views of cities, as well as individual buildings, such as churches and palaces. Many of his works are of Breslau, where he lived, worked and died. Cityscapes were popular amongst Nuremberg hausmaler and are generally attributed to earlier artists such as Johann Schaper, Ludwig Faber or Hermann Benckert although they are mostly unsigned. Our glass must be later as it includes the distinctive facade of the University of Breslau, the long building by the river to the right of the centre of the engraving, construction of which began in 1728 and was completed in 1737. Breslau or Wrocław in Silesia had been under Austrian Hapsburg rule until annexed by Prussia under Frederick the Great during the War of the Austrian Succession, it was ceded to Prussia

Top Topographia Seu Compendium Silesiae Opposite bottom right

The facade of the University of Breslau (Wroclaw)

in the Treaty of Breslau in 1742. It was one of the main routes between Dresden and Warsaw and was frequently visited by Augustus the Strong and his son Augustus III, Kings of Poland. It became a centre of German baroque literature. In February 1945, under the terms of the Potsdam Agreement, it became part of Poland.

Another almost identical example with a different cityscape is in the Chicago Art Institute, (Julius and Augusta N. Rosenwald Fund, no. 1945.182), the painting is there attributed to Hermann Benckert. This is the only closely comparable piece that we have found.

It is unusual to find schwarzlot decoration on formglas which was made across Germany throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is typically found on the more refined glass of Nuremberg. A schwarzlot scene, probably from Augsburg or Munich, on a related passglas with a triumphal procession of 1662 is in the British Museum.[1]

A schwarzlot view of Breslau also appears on the foot of an armorial glass decorated by Ignaz Preissler in the collection of Rudolf von Strasser. [2]

We are grateful to Mr Stephan Boll, Munich for helping us identify the view of Breslau and to Stanisław Ledóchowski for identifying the source for this view of Breslau.

JOHANN SCHAPER

Dutch Delft

Decorated in Nuremberg 1660-1665

Height 22.6 cm

Incised ‘IS’ for Johan Schaper

The main scene is a sepia landscape with figures taken from an engraving by Gabriel Perelle, framed by a particularly ornate cartouche. Two firing imperfections on the body are disguised with bugs.

The same scene is also the source for another signed piece dated 1663. [1] This shows a similarly mature painting style despite being produced only three years after Schaper’s earliest dated piece on either form glass or faience. By this point he would have already been 29 years old.

Bosch also notes, that over the course of the ten years that Schaper produced his works on faience or form glass there is hardly any recognisable change in his style. Although he did choose other motifs for his decoration, imaginary arcadian landscapes such as this were predominant by far. Occasionally he would use famous buildings as a focal point for his landscapes, but he was not interested in placing them in their actual context. [1]

See Bosch 1984, p. 37.

Top Engraving by Gabriel Perelle

As we find here, he would often include characters from everyday life. While he always based his landscapes and scenes on graphic sources, he produced his own interpretation of these scenes. This is notably different from many of the other hausmaler who would copy engravings exactly. [2]

A distinguishing feature of this piece is the border. Schaper experimented with a number of different borders throughout the course of his work, but this one is quite different from others and one of the most ornate.

This piece is illustrated along with twenty other signed pieces by Johann Schaper in Helmut Bosch (1984).

Provenance: Robert G. Vater Collection Anonymous sale; Sotheby’s, London, 25 March 1969, lot 19

Literature: Philip Wilson, Art At Auction: The Year at Sotheby’s & Parke-Bernet 19681969, (London, 1969), p. 382 Helmet Bosch, Die Nürnberger Hausmaler, (Munich, 1984), p. 32, no. 6

Top right

The incised IS Monogram of Johann Schaper

For a more in-depth discussion on the life and work of Schaper see Bosch 1984, pp. 15-21.

WOLFGANG ROSSLER

Decorated in Nuremberg

The jug, Birnkrug, attributed to Frankfurt, the pewter mount to Nuremberg

Circa 1690-1700

Height to the rim 20.7 cm

Height to the tip of finial 25.1 cm

Partially defaced ‘WR’ Monogram for Wolfgang Rossler

Decorated with a vivid fantasy landscape contained within an oval panel, surrounded by a border of pink roses. To the fore of are two figures walking along winding paths set amongst rocky outcrops and trees. The backdrop is distant, detailed and vast, with mountains shrouded in clouds and a castle nestled into the mountains on the right-hand side.

Rossler’s work is almost always signed to the base of the handle with a WR monogram, and for a long time he was referred to as the ‘Monogramist WR’. We now know he was born in 1655 in Nuremberg and trained there as a goldsmith, finishing his apprenticeship in 1676. He worked as a goldsmith from 1682 to 1711 and identified his work with a six-petalled rose on a shield. His earliest dated work on faience is dated 1681. [1]

Early on in his career Rossler tended to work in monochrome but switched to a polychrome palate around 1680. Landscapes such as this one tend to be the most accomplished of Rossler’s achievements. He repeated and perfected the motif, producing a variety of similar fantasy landscapes which seem to be of his own original design. When he copied engravings, particularly when they involve larger-scale people, the result tends to be less successful. Of all the Nuremberg hausmaler, Rossler is the one who most fully perfected the technical aspect of firing enamel on faience. His colours are extraordinarily vivid, and the colours are amplified with a thin colourless glaze. Fittingly, Pazaurek describes the ‘monogramist’ known as ‘WR’ to be ‘artistically only a little superior to Helmhack, but technically several times superior’.[2]

[1] For a more in-depth discussion on Rossler, see Bosch 1984, pp. 275-277.

[2] See Ziffer 2005, pp. 54-55, no. 20.

Literature

Helmet Bosch, Die Nürnberger hausmaler, (Munich, 1984), p. 308, no. 245.

Provenance

· Robert G. Vater Collection Anonymous sale; Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen, October 1971, lot 156

SECTION THREE

E AR LY D E CORA T ION ON

MEISSEN

PORCELAIN

CATALOGUE ENTRIES 5 – 8

THE EARLY DECORATION OF MEISSEN PORCELAI N

Having astonished Europe by unlocking the secrets of hard-paste porcelain and having established the factory in the fortress of the Albrechtsburg by royal decree on 23 January 1710, it is surprising how Meissen struggled to master the art of enamelling in its early years.

Having astonished Europe by unlocking the secrets of hardpaste porcelain and having established the factory in the fortress of the Albrechtsburg by royal decree on 23 January 1710, it is surprising how Meissen struggled to master the art of enamelling in its early years.

Johann Friedrich Böttger himself made some unsuccessful attempts to enamel his earliest porcelains, but he neither had the technology nor was he an artist. [1] All the decoration, for the first twenty years was subcontracted out to others.

Much of the enamelling of the first decade of Meissen is conventionally attributed to the Dresden master goldsmith Georg Funcke. However, in the absence of signed specimens it is difficult to make definite attributions, and while Funcke was the most important he was certainly not the only decorator. Dr Rainer Ruckert records the names of at least six other independent decorators in Dresden that were employed by Meissen. [2] On the 5 June 1719 the Ober Meister Johann Melchior Steinbrück wrote that Funcke "has focused on enamelling and grinding in the fire, for which he owes much to Böttger, who has given him much good advice; he supplies the best decorated porcelains that the manufactory sells”. Funcke was briefly recorded as a paid employee of Böttger in 1710, but from 13 May 1713 he described himself as a porcelain decorator working with gold, silver and muffle colours based in Dresden. Funcke observed that

for several years the firing of decoration took place in the laboratory in the Venusbastei on the Brühlsche Terrasse in the centre of Dresden, where the first successful experiments in the manufacture of porcelain had taken place in 1708-09, before the formal establishment of the factory in Meissen. [3] With the arrival of Johann Gregorius Höroldt, in 1720, a factory style began to emerge, but even he acted as an independent sub-contractor paid by piecework moving into rooms in the castle that were not part of the factory in October 1722. He guarded his position jealously, forbidding his painters, which numbered around six in the early 1720s, to sign their work which makes the attribution to individual artists an engaging but difficult exercise. It was only after the scandal of the Hoym/Lemaire affair that he was required to write down all his technical secrets in his Arkanabuch which survives in the factory. He and his painters were only fully integrated into the manufactory in the Spring of 1731. [4]

Errol Manners

[1] For a more detailed summary of Meissen’s early struggle to master enamelling, see Errol Manners ‘Porcelain teapot with enamel decoration (1714-15)’ in Brittle Beauty 2023, entry 8, pp. 60-63.

[2] Ruckert 1990, p. 134.

[3] Ruckert 1990, p. 147.

[4] Ruckert 1990, p. 134.

Top Meissen, Böttger porcelain teapot decorated by Georg Funke Circa 1715, private collection

A MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, FIGURE OF THE ' N Ü RNB E R GI S CHE BÄ U R I N '

Possibly decorated by George Funke

Circa 1715-25

Height 15.7 cm

A cursive ‘JB’ lustre mark to the interior of the pedestal Paper label for the Pauls-Eisenbeiss Collection

T. H. (Tim) Clarke first identified this apparently unique figure as being derived from an engraving of the Nürnbergische Bäurin from Die Neu Eröffnete Welt-Galleria, published in Nuremberg in 1703, and explained the curious transformation.

The Welt-Galleria was a typical costume book of its time comprising a series of a hundred engravings issued by Christoph Weigel (1654-1726) after designs by the Dutchman Caspar Luyken. Clarke established that nearly half of these images had been used by Meissen as sources for enamel decoration or for figure models in some form or another. Many of the figure models are peculiar for the manner in which that they have been foreshortened and transformed into figures of dwarfs, a genre popular in court culture at the time. Clarke wittily christened the modeller ‘The Procrustes Master’ after the legendary ancient Greek bandit who attacked people by stretching them or cutting off their legs, so as to force them to fit the size of an iron bed. The only known figure that relates directly to ours is a white figure of a dwarf which uses the head of our figure on a characteristically much-foreshortened body.[1]

T. H. Clarke argues for a date of around 1725 for our figure and the other related dwarfs and figures of different nationalities, basing this on a report of 15 January 1725 which talks of “The factor Mr Chladni has sent 161 plaster moulds of all kinds of nations and other figures to the manufacturer, which he received from a certain Augsburger on the 9th. They are to be used immediately and moulds taken from them”.[2] However the decoration of many of these figures seems much earlier, some even incorporate cold-decoration which was only used

[1] This figure has been mis-identified as the dwarf ‘Der Zwerg Ursula Schleglin’, from the engraving published in Il Callotto resuscitato. oder Neu eingerichtes Zwerchen-Cabinet’, in Augsburg by Martin Engelbrecht around 1715.

Top Engraving of the Nürnbergische Bäurin from Die Neu Eröffnete Welt-Galleria

Bottom Dresden, Porzellansammlung (Inv.-Nr. P.E. 3784 - acquired from the Spitzner collection in 1890)

on small items in the earliest days of the factory [3], and there is no sign of the wide palette of colours that came with the arrival of Johann Gregorius Höroldt in 1720.

Our figure is decorated in just gold, purple around her bodice and with flesh tones to her face and hands. These colours are consistent with the early palette of Georg Funke. Claus Boltz published the ‘Emaille-farbenverbrauch Georg Funckes 1713 bis 1719’ which lists the enamel colours that he purchased, and their cost. [4] He bought purple, blue, green and yellow each year from 1713, deep purple/puce from 1717 and black and red from 1718.

Provenance

Reported to have been found in Venice in 1966 and exhibited in Rome at the ‘Mostra Nazionale dell’ Antiquariato in May 1966

· Pauls-Eisenbeiss Collection, Basel Sold from the above by Christie’s Geneva, 12 November 1976, lot 211 Literature

K. Strauss, ’Zwei unbekannte Meissner Porzellanfiguren’, Weltkunst, 1 July, 1966, fig. 1, p. 629

[2] Clarke 1990, p. 24. Clarke cites Karl Berling but notes that Berling did not give a source. “Sind durch den factor Herrn Chladni 161 stück Gips Formen von allerhand Nationen und andern Figuren, die er von einem gewissen Augspurger erhalten den 9. Hujus anher zur Manufactor übersendet worden. Welche sofort in Arbeit genommen, und daraus ausgeformet werden sollen“.

[3] For example the figure of a dwarf of a young Indian woman, illustrated Clarke 1990, fig. 17 & 18.

[4] Boltz 2000, p. 143.

E. Pauls-Eisenbeiss, German Porcelain of the 18th Century, vol. I (1972), pp. 70-71, Titled ‘The Strict Housekeeper’

T.H. Clarke, ’Die Neu Eröffnete Welt-Galleria, Nürnberg 1703, als Stichvorlage für sogenannte CallotZwerge’, Keramos 127 (1990)

A MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, IRON-RED BEAKER AND SAUCER

Painted by Johann Gregorius Höroldt

Circa 1723/24

Diam. 12.9 cm

Height 8 cm

Johann Gregorius Höroldt arrived in Meissen with a chinoiserie style that he had already developed in Vienna. A few early pieces of Du Paquier porcelain similarly decorated are likely to have been decorated by Höroldt before 1720 whilst he was still in Vienna. [1] Höroldt is recorded as having painted a service in iron-red at Meissen as early as 1720, soon after his arrival. [2]

The design for our saucer is precisely copied on a sheet in the Schulz, where it is drawn in a roundel. [3] The purpose of the drawings in the collections of sheets known as the Schulz Codex seems to vary. Some are intended as designs by Höroldt for his painters to follow or to practice copying, others such as this are likely to be a record of a service before it left the factory, it is very unusual to find quite such a close correspondence.

Our beaker and saucer comes from a service sold by Christie’s on 28 June 1976 (lots 138 – 143). Several pieces from the service were exhibited in Dresden in the Johann Gregorius Höroldt Exhibition in 1996. [4] A beaker and saucer and a teabowl and saucer are in the Carabelli Collection [5] and the slop bowl was in the collection of Sir Jeffrey Tate and Klaus Kuhlemann, London. Another beaker and saucer from the Arnhold Collection is now in the Frick Collection. [6]

Provenance

Christie’s, London, 28 June 1976, lot 140, ’Property of a Lady’ Robert Compton-Jones Collection

[1] Some Vienna Du Paquier pieces decorated with designs found in the Schulz codex are thought to have been copied from Höroldt style Meissen pieces in Vienna. This flask seems closer to the hand of G. H. Höroldt himself. For a summary of Höroldt’s time in Vienna see Claudia Lehner-Jobst’s entry on a ‘Mustard pot with cover’ in Brittle Beauty, no. 10, pp.72-81.

[2] Pietsch 1996 p. 38.

[3] Schulz Codex 1978 pl. 21.

[4] Pietsch 1996, nos. 7-12.

[5] Pietsch 2000, nos. 2-3.

[6] Cassidy-Geiger 2008, no. 74.

Top Schulz Codex plate 21

Bottom Du Paquier porcelain probably painted by Johann Gregorius Höroldt in Vienna Circa 1719, Mary and Peter White Collection

A MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN,  SAUCER WITH A BEDSIDE SCENE

Probably painted by Johann Gregorius Höroldt

Circa 1723-24

Diam. 12 cm

Here, a perhaps over-familiar physician attends a wayward wife, while innocence fleeing from Eden might be depicted on the wallpaper behind. The inventiveness and wit suggest the hand of Johann Gregorius Höroldt.

At least three early tea services are known which depict scenes from a satirical story which follows the adventures of an unfaithful wife whilst her husband is away on campaign. They follow, in part, a set of engravings in a pattern book published by Albrecht Schmidt (1667-1744) of Augsburg. [1] The source for our saucer has not been found but is likely to be after an engraving by Bernard Picart (1673-1733), numerous such images were pirated by German publishers. [2]

Maureen Cassidy-Geiger has shown that a preliminary study for the related scene on a teabowl and saucer from the Arnhold collection appears as one of the few European studies in the Schulz Codex. [3]

Provenance

Collection of Sir Jeffrey Tate Kt. CBE and Klaus Kuhlemann

[1] Bodinek 2018 pp. 384-388.

[2] Cassidy-Geiger 1996.

[3] Cassidy_Geiger 1996, fig. 30 and Schulz Code fol. 126, and for the related pieces in the Arnhold collection see Cassidy-Geiger 2008, pp. 291-294.

A MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, WASTE BOWL WITH A VIEW OF THE ALBRECHTSBURG AT MEISSEN

Decorated in the Workshop of Johann Gregorius Höroldt

Circa 1726

Diam. 16.7 cm

Height 9.6 cm

Gilt numeral 46.

Painted with a large view of the fortress of the Albrechtsburg dominating the town of Meissen on the banks of the Elbe traversed by the old, covered bridge, beside the Jacob’s or Water Chapel. The scene set within a gilt lobed quatrefoil cartouche with panels of Böttger lustre. The reverse with another view of boats laden with barrels on the Elbe. The interior with panel of Chinese figures in the manner of J. E. Stadler.

A snuff box of around 1755, from the Designmuseum Denmark (Inv. B 259/1939), painted with a view of the Albrechtsburg from upstream to the south, is after one of a series of six prints of the Dresden area by Alexander Thiele of 1726. [1] Our scene must be from another source or drawn from life since it is painted from the north, looking downstream. This is perhaps the earliest depictions of the location of the factory on Meissen porcelain.

[1] Bodinek 2018, vol. II, no. 320.

Top Alexander Thiele, 1726 Vue du Chateau Electoral de Meissen en Saxe et des Environs, du coté du Couchant British Museum (1870,0625.422)

The late gothic fortress of the Albrechtsburg, originating in the 15th century, is considered the first residential palace in Germany. It was largely unused by the Dukes of Saxony until Augustus the Strong decided to establish the Meissen porcelain factory there in 1710. Being on the river Elbe, just 25 kilometres downstream from Dresden, the fortress was well-positioned for the transport of the heavy raw materials and wood required for the manufacture of porcelain and for the ultimate delivery of the finished wares. The boat laden with barrels depicted on the reverse may well be engaged in just such transport.

The fortress was chosen as a secure place to protect the arcanum from spies and to imprison Johann Friedrich Böttger, the errant alchemist and co-discoverer of these secrets. Porcelain was made there for 153 years, from the founding of the factory in 1710 until 1863 when a purpose-built factory was established below in the town of Meissen.

Provenance:

Margarete Oppenheim Collection

Berlin, sold Julius Böhler, Munich, 18-22 May 1936, lot 797 (part)

Otto Blohm Collection

Hamburg, sold Hans W. Lange, Berlin, 18-19 November 1938, lot 559 (part)

Herbert Wolfe Collection

Bonhams, 17 June 1998, lot 38

Collection of Sir Jeffrey Tate Kt. CBE and Klaus Kuhlemann

Sold by agreement with the Executor of the Estate of the late Margarete Oppenheim Bonhams

London, 22 July 2020, lot 19

S ECTION FOUR

D ANI EL AND I G NAZ

PREISSLER

CATALOGUE ENTRIES 9 – 17

DANIEL AND IGNAZ

PREISSLER

The Preisslers were responsible for some of the most beautiful and accomplished of all outside decoration on glass and porcelain. Recent work by Helena Brožková and colleagues at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague has clarified much of the story of Daniel Preissler (1636-1733) and his son Ignaz (1676-1741) that had previously been ambiguous and confused.

Daniel and Ignaz Preissler were artists in the service of the Counts Kolowrat-Liebsteinsky in Kunštát (Kronstadt) in eastern Bohemia. [1] They worked largely in black (schwarzlot), iron-red enamels and gold on Asian and European porcelain and on Bohemian glass. They were documented as Kolowrat serfs [2] working from the last quarter of the 17th century to the 1730s. Their commissions from other patrons were mediated by František Karel II, the Count of Kolowrat-Liebsteinsky (1684-1753).

Unlike those in the Free City of Nuremburg, artist working for the Kolowrats never signed their work, consequently there are no signed pieces by either Daniel or Ignaz Preissler and identifying their individual hands is difficult. There were probably others in their workshop such as Tobiáš Hanuš (16951733) who was also recorded as a porcelain painter on the Kolowrat estates at Rychnov.

Where particular confusion has arisen is that a certain “Herr Preußler” was recorded working not far away in Silesia, in Wroclaw (Breslau in German), in 1726 by the chronicler and physician Johann Christian Kundmann (1684-1751). He has wrongly been identified as Ignaz Preissler.[3] Recent studies in Czech archives have established that Ignaz never left Kunštát for any length of time, but one possible theory is that the “Herr Preußler” of Wroclaw is, in fact, Ignaz’s younger brother Florián Preissler whose christening in Kunštát is recorded in 1681, yet no further record of him exists in local archives.[4] Kundmann’s account stated that “in Breslau [Wroclaw], “Herr Preußler” only paints in grey or black; but now Herr Pottengruber (obviously

Ignaz Bottengruber, see section 5) produces all assorted colours, and indeed with a perfection that has never before been seen”, and that “Herr Preußler” has worked for seven years for a local nobleman Herr Ernst Benjamin von Löwenstädt von Ronneberg and had decorated over one hundred pieces of Oriental porcelain in grisaille and gold for him. It is possible that some pieces that we attribute to Ignaz Preissler are in fact by the Breslau “Herr Preußler”.

For evidence for the attribution of pieces to Daniel and Ignaz Preissler we have the twelve glasses that Rudolf von Strasser bought from the descendants of the Preisslers’ patrons, the Counts Kolowrat-Liebsteinsky, that had been part of an old inventory of wares from Reichenau Castle in Kronstadt, which he argues convincingly can be attributed to Ignaz and perhaps Daniel Preissler. [5] These include the typical chinoiseries that are generally attributed to Ignaz Preissler and others with subjects derived from European engravings. Another key piece is the octagonal glass basin bearing the arms of the Kolowrats in the Umĕleckoprůmyslové Museum in Prague which also originally came from Reichenau Castle.

We also have the illuminating series of letters from Tobiáš Hanuš between 1729 and 1732 in which he noted that Preissler (surely Ignaz as Daniel would now have been well into his 90s) decorated two hundred and eighty-five porcelain and twelve glass objects in schwarzlot (black monochrome) and gold, and iron-red and gold. He further stated that he mostly painted chinoiseries (Indijanische Figuren und landschaften) but also

‘difficult poetic subjects’ (Poetische Mühesame). In 1731 Ignaz Preissler wrote in a letter that he, like his father, considered monochrome painting in black or iron-red to be the finest and most subtle form of decoration. [6]

There is a tendency to attribute the reverse glass paintings to the hand of Daniel Preissler and the decoration of much of the porcelain to Ignaz Preissler and his workshop. Inevitably the reality is more complicated, and they surely both worked together in both mediums.

THE PREISSLERS AND REVERSE GLASS PAINTINGS

We are on firmer ground for the attribution of the reverse glass paintings to Daniel Preissler since a contract of 10 August 1704 was discovered, for the execution of twelve reverse-glass paintings, between Daniel Preissler of Kunštát and Count Christoph Wenzel (Kryštof Václav) Nostitz (1648-1712), the owner of an estate that bordered the Kolowrat estates, confirming his authorship of these works.[1] The contract stipulated that the artist should use good quality gold and flawless mirror glass and designated specific subject matter including a set of the Seasons.[2]

The Glasmaler Daniel Preissler’s technique involved the painstaking painting of the image in black and sepia tones onto one side of the glass, and carefully scratching details of the design before backing it with gold leaf, which creates glowing images of exceptional richness.

Errol Manners

Left

[1] Daniel was first recorded in the Village of Bedřichovka (Friedrichswald) on the Solnice estate in 1675. He was probably employed there as a painter in the glassmanufacturing workshop of glass master Peterhansel. Shortly afterwards the family moved to the nearby village of Kunštát. Brožková 2009.

[2] Brožková 2020, p. 33.

[3] The confusion also occurs in my own previously published work, see Manners 2000.

[4] Šůla 2009, pp. 32 &33 for a summary in English.

[5] von Strasser 1973.

[6] von Strasser p. 137.

An octagonal glass basin with the arms of the Kolowrats, originally from Reichenau Castle

The Umĕleckoprůmyslové Museum, Prague

Right

Bowl with horses from the Duke of Newcastle's training school, Rudolf von Strasser Collection

[1] Brožková 2009, p. 99.

[2] Brožková 2020, p. 34.

A SET OF FOUR REVERSE GLASS PAINTINGS OF THE SEASONS

By Daniel Preissler

Circa 1700-1710

The glass 36 x 29.2 cm

Incl. frames 42.2 x 35 cm

Frames attributed to the workshop of Jan Adalbert Ignaz Kratochwill, 1700-1720

The designs are taken from a set of four engravings of the Seasons by Jean de Poilly after the paintings by Pierre Mignard of around 1680 made for the decoration of the Château de Saint- Cloud between 1677 and 1680.[1]

The subjects on the original engravings are:

Spring ~ L’Hymen de Zephire et de Flore

Summer ~ Le Sacrifice en l’honneur de Ceres

Autumn Le Triomphe de Bacchus et d’Ariadne

Winter ~ Cybele Deese de la Terre implore le retour du Soleil

We are grateful to Antony Griffiths, Maureen Cassidy-Geiger,  Jana Černovská and Prof. Dr. Monika Kopplin for their help with this entry.

Provenance

A Styrian Collection

[1] Antony Griffiths notes that Preissler would not have used the original French engravings, but copies made in Germany. Almost every good French engraving in these decades was copied in Germany, often several times over, as French publication privileges did not extend there.

Opposite top Spring L’Hymen de Zephire et de Flore

Opposite bottom Autumn ~ Le Triomphe de Bacchus et d’Ariadne

Right

The Seasons engraved by Jean de Poilly after Pierre Mignard, circa 1680

The contract of 10 August 1704, for the execution of twelve reverse-glass paintings, between Daniel Preissler of Kunštát and Count Christoph Wenzel (Kryštof Václav) Nostitz (16481712), the owner of an estate that bordered the Kolowrat estates, confirms his authorship of these works.[2] The contract stipulated that the artist should use good quality gold and flawless mirror glass and designated specific subject matter including a set of the Seasons.[3]

The inventories of the Kolowrat property from 1753 and 1759 list a large number of reverse glass, or “hinterglas” paintings and other pictures that were walled up in anticipation of a possible Prussian invasion. These included allegories of the Seasons among much else.[4]

Interestingly Maureen Cassidy-Geiger has identified the same sources used for the decoration on two pieces of Chinese porcelain by the hand that is generally attributed to Daniel’s son Ignaz Preissler. It is probable that father and son collaborated closely and in the total absence of signed work it is difficult to make certain attributions. The bowl in the J Paul Getty Museum is taken from Spring with the marriage of Flora and Zephyr in the interior, and Summer with the sacrifice of Ceres on the exterior. The shallow circular dish in the Musée National de la Céramique, Sèvres, is derived from Autumn with the Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne.[5] The two pieces were clearly commissioned together.

It is unusual to find engravings that were used on both Preissler reverse glass paintings and on Chinese porcelain. This establishes an interesting link between the work of the two major classes of object attributed to the Preisslers.

Cassidy-Geiger notes that Chinese porcelain similarly decorated by Ignaz Preissler was already described in the Inventarium über das Palais zu Alt-Dresden Anno 1721 under the chapter heading “Weiss Sächsische Porcelain” in 1721 [6] and that further pieces were added in 1722.[7] They were correctly identified as being Bohemian.

[2] Brožková 2009, p. 99.

[3] Brožková 2020, p.34.

[4] Brožková 2020, p.37.

[5] Cassidy-Geiger 1987, pp. 35-52.

[6] N.7. 3. Stk. Extra feine runde am Rand vergoldete Chocolate Tassen u. Schaalen, daruff mit einer rothen Couleur sauber en Crotesqué gemahlet ist; Diese Arbeit is in Pöhmen gefertiget worden, und jede Tasse und Schaale is von differenter Zeichnung. Zwey Tassen darvon sind schadhafft, jede aber 3. Z. tieff und 2 1/2 . in diam. Eine Schaale aber ¾ Z. in diam,. Cassidy-Geiger 1987 p.35.

[7] The pieces listed in 1722 came from Count Lagnasco, Augustus the Strong’s agent in The Netherlands, Cassidy-Geiger 1987, p. 35.

Top Chinese porcelain with decoration attributed to Ignaz Preissler, circa 1720 The J Paul Getty Museum

Bottom Chinese porcelain with decoration attributed to Ignaz Preissler, circa 1720 Musée National de la Céramique, Sèvres

THE FRAMES

The lacquered and gilded frames, decorated in the manner of Stalker and Parker, are close in style to those on the set of seventy-two paintings of members of the court in Turkish costume which were commissioned by Sibylla Augusta Margravine of Baden-Baden for Schloss Favorite near Rastatt.[8] These are attributed to Jan Adalbert Ignaz Kratochvil (1667 - 1741).

Jan Adalbert Ignaz Kratochvil (or Johann Adalbert Kratochwill) is documented in Western Bohemia in 1694 where he is described as the ‘kaiserliche indianische Kammermaler’ or Imperial ‘Indian’ room painter.[9] Unusually in a Czech context, Kratochvil imitated the Japanese hiramaki-e or sprinkled gold technique, which occurs on the corners of our frames.[10] In 1712, he secured an imperial privilege for painting with lacquer, which had rarely been used in Bohemia before that, even though it was well established in Dresden and Berlin.

We are grateful to Antony Griffiths, Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, Jana Černovská and Prof. Dr. Monika Kopplin for their help with this entry.

[8] Huth 1971, pp. 79 & 80, colour pl. XII a, and pl. 209 a & b.

[9] Suchomel 2019, p. S49.

[10] Suchomel 2019, p. S50.

Top Frame designs from Stalker and Parker, A treatise of japaning and varnishing, (1688)

Bottom right Frames attributed to Jan Adalbert Ignaz Kratochvil (16671741) Schloss Favorite

Spring ~ L’Hymen de Zephire et de Flore

Autumn ~ Le Triomphe de Bacchus et d’Ariadne

Winter ~ Cybele Deese de la Terre implore le retour du Soleil

A REVERSE GLASS PAINTING OF AMAZONS

Attributed to Daniel Preissler

Circa 1700-1710

The glass 21.5 x 29.8 cm

The frame 28 x 26 cm

This image seems to have been created by combining elements from different sources, whether this was done by Daniel Preissler himself or was already combined in an unidentified pre-existing engraving we do not know. The background details of vistas and trees are typical Preissler workshop designs.

The boldly baroque figures of the Amazons perhaps derive indirectly from engravings such as ‘Penthesilée Reyne des Amazones’, from the series of ‘Famous women of antiquity’, published by Nicolas Bonnart I after Robert Bonnart, in France c. 1678-1700. Similar equestrian figures appear in designs for court festivities in France and Saxony.[1]

The running figures in the foreground are more renaissance in style and have perhaps been adapted from a source such as the engraving of Marcantonio Raimondi of ‘Joseph and Potiphar’s wife’ after Raphael.

Provenance

The picture was backed with newspaper pages from ‘The Philadelphia Inquirer’ of October 15, 1909, indicating that it had been in America from at least this date.

[1] See for instance Schnitzer & Hölscher 200, fig. 26a-1, pp.118 & 119.

Top left

‘Penthesilée Reyne des Amazones’, From the series of ‘Famous women of antiquity’ Published by Nicolas Bonnart I after Robert Bonnart, France 1678-1700

Top right

Marcantonio Raimondi of ‘Joseph and Potiphar’s wife’ after Raphael, c. 1515-25

A REVERSE GLASS PAINTING OF SAINT CECILIA

Attributed to Daniel Preissler

Circa 1700-1710

The glass 33.0 x 24.5 cm

The frame 42.0 x 32.8 cm

This image of Saint Cecilia is a mirrored version of an engraving by Johann Jakob Kilian (1678 - 1705) of Augsburg. It has the addition of a church in the right background which Prof. Steiner suggests could be the Basilica of St. Jakob in Prague which was furnished with a magnificent organ in 1705. Saint Cecilia is the patron saint of music and musicians and is often depicted playing the pipe organ.

Provenance:

Collection of Gisela and Prof. Wolfgang Steiner

Literature:

· Wolfgang Steiner, Goldglanz und Silberpracht: Hinterglasmalerei aus vier Jahrhunderten, Catalogue of the exhibition at the Schaezlerpalais der Kunstsammlungen und Museen Augsburg, 11 September to 15 November 2015, no. 22

Exhibited:

· Schaezlerpalais der Kunstsammlungen und Museen Augsburg, 11 September to 15 November 2015

Top Saint Cecila by Johann Jakob Kilian

A PAIR OF REVERSE GLASS PAINTINGS OF MILITARY LANDSCAPES WITH SCENES OF THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION

Attributed to Ignaz or Daniel Preissler

Circa 1715-1720

The glass 33.0 cm x 24.5 cm

The frame 42.0 cm x 32.8 cm

Both these views are taken from engravings by Georg Philipp Rugendas the Elder (1666 - 1742) with scenes from the War of the Spanish Succession.

The War of the Spanish Succession lasted from the death of Charles II, the last of the Spanish Hapsburg kings, in 1700 until peace was concluded in 1714. It provided a rich source of battles celebrated in paintings, tapestries and engravings after numerous artist such as Rugendas and Paul Decker (1685-1742).[1]

Provenance

Collection of Gisela and Prof. Wolfgang Steiner Lempertz, Hinterglas Gemälde, 16 November 2-13, lot 16

Literature

· Wolfgang Steiner, ... eine andere Art von Malerey: Hinterglasgemälde und ihre Vorlagen 1550–1850 (Berlin-Munich 2012), illus. 60 f. Wolfgang Steiner, Goldglanz und Silberpracht: Hinterglasmalerei aus vier Jahrhunderten, Catalogue of the exhibition at the Schaezlerpalais der Kunstsammlungen und Museen Augsburg, (11 September to 15 November 2015), no. 23 f. Exhibited

Schaezlerpalais der Kunstsammlungen und Museen Augsburg 2012

· Schaezlerpalais der Kunstsammlungen und Museen Augsburg, 11 September to 15 November 2015

[1]

A PAIR OF REVERSE GLASS PAINTINGS OF MILITARY LANDSCAPES WITH SCENES OF THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION

Attributed to Ignaz or Daniel Preissler

Circa 1715-1720

The glass 25 x 17.5 cm

The frames 32 x 24 cm

Probably based on engravings from engravings by Georg Philipp Rugendas the Elder (1666 - 1742) or Paul Decker (1685-1742) with scenes from the War of the Spanish Succession.

THE PREISSLERS AND PORCELAIN

Preissler decoration is found on Chinese porcelain [1] and from some time in the later 1710s on early Meissen, Böttger porcelain, once that became available. The European porcelain decorated by the Preisslers is often mistakenly said to be Viennese Du Paquier porcelain. This is very rarely the case. [2] The confusion arises because the forms are often untypical of Meissen, but this is because the outside decorators only had access to old rejected stocks of Meissen porcelain, pieces that were imperfect or of shapes that were no longer current.

The only widely available Chinese porcelain that was completely white was blanc-de-chine porcelain from Dehua which could be found in a limited number of shapes. They also sought out Chinese Jingdezhen when available with relatively little decoration such as the small teabowl no. 21.

On a few occasions they overdecorated Chinese famille- verte porcelain when there was sufficient white surface left available. [3] In one curious instance they added their distinctive chinoiseries to a Chinese white Jingdezhen porcelain saucer dish that had previously been decorated in Holland in Japanese Kakiemon style. In short it is a Chinese dish, decorated in Holland in the Japanese Kakiemon style, then further decorated in Bohemia in a chinoiserie style with decoration derived from early travels books about China. A multi-layered object! [4]

[1] We know of only one example of their decoration on Japanese porcelain, on a bowl that we sold to the Peabody Essex Museum, in Salem MA in 2006 (museum no. AE86533). We subsequently sold the Peabody Essex Museum a non-overdecorated Arita bowl of the same rare shape (museum no. 2017.37.1).

[2] For rare instances of Preissler decoration on Du Paquier porcelain see Kuhn 2009, pp. 523-24, figs 6:17-6:19.

[3] See the example from the Henry Arnhold Collection which is enriched with schwarzlot and iron-red chinoiseries. Cassidy-Geiger 2008, p. 627, no. 316.

[4] We sold this dish to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2013.

Opposite top

The Chinese porcelain dish with Japanese Kakiemonstyle decoration added in Holland circa 1710-15; The Preissler decoration removed in photoshop

Opposite bottom

The same dish with chinoiseries added in schwarzlot and gold in the Preissler workshop circa 1720; Now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art

A MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, BOWL

Attributed to Daniel or Ignaz Preissler

Kronstadt, Bohemia

Circa 1715-20

Diam. 17.9 cm

Height 7.7 cm

Painted in schwarzlot and gold with ‘Leda and the Swan’ and ‘Venus and Cupid’ divided by elaborate harbour scenes.

This superbly decorated bowl shows the art of Daniel and Ignaz Preissler at its most accomplished. It must surely be what their colleague Tobiáš Hanuš described as ‘difficult poetic subjects’ (Poetische Mühesame). The quality of the draughtsmanship and details of the harbour scenes are close to that of the best of the reverse glass paintings which raises the possibility of this bowl being the work of Daniel Preissler although he would have been in his late 70s by the time that Böttger porcelain would have been available.

The continuous scene has been skilfully woven together from popular French or German or prints that were copied produced in large numbers in by Augsburg and Nuremberg publishers.

The buildings, ships and harbour scenes are probably adapted from engravings after artists such as Johann Wilhelm Baur (1607-1642) or Stefano Della Bella (1610-1664).[1]

The thinly potted Böttger porcelain is noticeably warped and there are imperfections in the paste at the rim, this is typical of the sort of pieces of undecorated porcelain that the Preisslers were able to obtain from the Meissen factory.

Provenance:

· E& H Manners

Anthony du Boulay

[1] See Cassidy-Geiger 199, figs 34-36 and Bodinek 2018, pp. 34-36 and p.55.

Top Jeremias Wolff from Reisender Cupido in anmuthigen Uni Tubingen

Bottom Leda and the Swan Paris early 18th century

A MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, TEABOWL AND SAUCER

Decorated with Apollo and Coronis Attributed to Ignaz Preissler Kronstadt, Bohemia

Circa 1715-25

The saucer diam. 12.5 cm

The teabowl height 4.5 cm

Painted in iron-red and schwarzlot with Apollo and Coronis, the teabowl with a castle by a river, the interior with Coronis and her lover.

In Ovid’s version of the myth, a raven informs Apollo that his lover, Coronis, has been unfaithful and enraged he shoots her. Not wanting his unborn child to die, he delivered the boy by caesarean section naming him Asclepius and taught him about medicinal herbs.

The image is probably taken from an illustration by Johann Wilhelm Baur for his ‘Ovidii Theatrum’, published in Nuremberg 1685.

It is interesting to note that the same scene of Apollo and Coronis is also known in schwarzlot and gold on a Chinese teabowl with a matching saucer with the arms of the KolowratSchwarzenberg family [1], the Preisslers’ patron. It is also known on a beaker in the Victoria and Albert Museum.[2]

Provenance

The Müller-Frei Collection

[1] We are grateful to Cristina Maritano for this information. [2] V&A accession number 44571869.

Top Engraved by Johann Wilhelm Baur, ‘Ovidii Theatrum’ Published Nuremberg 1685

Bottom Palazzo Madama, Turin

A MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, SAUCER

Decorated with a riverscape

Attributed to Ignaz Preissler

Kronstadt, Bohemia Circa 1715-25

Diam. 10.9 cm

Faint trace of black lacquer inventory mark. P. 3

Decorated in schwarzlot and highlighted in gold with figures and buildings in a riverscape.

Provenance

Alexander and Ilse Tafel Collection

Sold at Metz auction 18 May, 2019

A CHINESE PORCELAIN TEABOWL WITH CHINOISERIE DECORATION

Attributed to Ignaz Preissler

Kronstadt, Bohemia

Circa 1720-30

Diam. 8.7 cm

Height 4.5 cm

The Chinese Jingdezhen porcelain teabowl with incised anhua decoration between bands of underglaze blue ‘cash’ borders, decorated in iron-red and gold with Chinese figures and birds within a scrollwork frieze.

An example of the chinoiseries that Tobiáš Hanuš described as Indijanische Figuren und landschaften. Chinese porcelain ‘particularly with blue borders’ was recorded as being bought for Preissler by Count Kolowrat in Prague. [1]

A teabowl and saucer from the same service is in the British Museum. [2] A matching saucer is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Provenance

Winifred Williams Ltd.

S ECTION FIVE

IGNAZ BOTTENGRUBER

AND H IS FO LL OW E RS

IN SILESIA

CATALOGUE ENTRIES 18 – 22

IGNAZ BOTTENGRUBER AND HIS FOLLOWERS IN SILESIA

Ignaz Bottengruber was undoubtedly the most creative and original of the German hausmaler. His technical mastery was matched with a wonderfully imaginative approach to baroque ornament.

The earliest record of Bottengruber is in the parish register of the church of Maria auf dem Sande in Breslau, recording the baptism of his son on October 8, 1721. It lists him as a painter living on the same street as the church. [1] Most of what we know about Bottengruber comes from the chronicles published between 1723 and 1736 of Johann Christian Kundmann (1684-1751) in which he describes twelve notable Kunst-und Raritäten-Cabinets of Breslau in Silesia.[2] In the 1723 edition Kundmann records:

"It is said that fine porcelain of the same kind is now being produced in Vienna with a clay from Debrecen in Upper Hungary, which, if it is not to be preferred to the Dresden porcelain, is certainly to be esteemed just as highly. Both can be painted in the artistic manner, as they especially are in Dresden and also here [Breslau], and the colours can be fired in. At first Herr Preussler did painting only in grey monochrome or in black but now Herr Pottengruber (sic) is doing this with all manner of bright colours and to such a degree of perfection as has otherwise never happened here before." [3]

Signed and dated pieces exist which allow us to identify his work in Breslau, such as the saucer in the Metropolitan Museum of Art inscribed “IAB. f. Wrat:/ 1726, ‘Wrat’ being short

for Wratislaviensis, the Latin name for Breslau (now Wrocław in Poland). Other pieces are dated 1727 and 1728.[4] Kundmann again refers to Bottengruber in 1726 writing of ‘porcelain vases by ‘Preuslero & Pottengrubero’ with various pictures in miniature elegantly drawn’[5] and in the edition of 1736 tells us that Bottengruber worked for Dr Johannes Georgius Pauli of Breslau, the son of Dr Matthaus Pauli, the personal physician to Augustus the Strong. Kundmann records in the 1741 edition:

"For many years he maintained, at great expense, an artful miniature artist in his house, named Bottengruber, who first painted the birds of Silesia ….. Then they fell in love with porcelain painting, and this painter went so far that he painstakingly painted and engraved in miniature entire histories on Dresden porcelain, with a lot of gold mixed in, on bowls, plates, dishes, jugs and tea bowls, so that the painting was not changed in the slightest; so that many of the most distinguished collectors sought them with much pleasure; also a certain baron of Ts- -- von Th - - - - approached me to offer to Mr Pauli to sell a vessel with Festum Bacchi, or a Banquet of the Gods, painted on it, I was to offer him 100 Rthl for it, but he could not get it for it: so highly did he value this artistic work." [6]

[1] Cassidy-Geiger, note 3.

[2] See Cassidy-Geiger 1998, citing Johann Christian Kundmann, Sammlung von Natur- und Medizingeschichten (1723), quoted in Edmund Wilhelm Braun, Joh. Christ. Kundmann als Quelle für die Kunstgeschichte des XVIII. Jahrhunderts, in SchlesiensVorzeitin Bild und Schrift, N .F. 3 (1904), pp. 109-110. And see footnote 5 for a complete transcription of the contents of Dr Pauli’s cabinet.

[3] The ‘Herr Preusler’ mentioned here is not Ignaz Preissler as was once thought, but possibly a younger brother or more distant relation. See p.46 of this catalogue. The original German reads: ‘darauf in Bresslau erstlich Herr Preussler nur grau in grau oder schwarze Gemählde gemacht, ietzo aber verrichtet dieses Herr Pottengruber mit allen bunten Farben,und zwar in solcher Perfection, als es sonst niemals allhier geschehen worden’.

[4] Cassidy-Geiger 1998 p. 248.

[5] Kundmann 1726, p. 315 ‘Vascula Porcellanica a Preuslero & Pottengrubero cum variis picturis per Artem miniculatoriam eleganter expressis’ available online at catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100700623

[6] This is translated from the longer extract from Kundmann’s edition transcribed by Cassidy-Geiger 1998, p. 260 footnote 6. The original German reads: ‘Er unterhielt über dieses viele Jahre, mit grossen Unkosten in seinem Hause einen künstlichen MiniaturMahler, mit Nahmen Bottengruber, welcher ihm zu erst die Vögel von Schlesien, die nur zu bekommen gewesen, nach dem Leben in ein Buch gemahlet, so ist Hr. D. Schumacher allhier besitzet. Darauf verfielen sie auf die Porcellain-Mahleren, und dieser Mahler brachte es so weit, dass er grau in grau, oder von braunrother Farbe, so Crocus Martis war, und Purpur-Farbe mit Rubin-Fluß aufs mühstamste en Miniature gantze Historien auf Dresdner Porcellain, mit Vielem untermischten Gold, auf Schüsseln, Teller, Schalen, Krügchen und Theeschälschen, mahlete und einschmeltzete, dadurch die Mahlerey im.

Top The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “IAB. F. Wrat:/ 1726, ‘Wrat’ Gift of R. Thornton Wilson, in memory of Florence Ellsworth Wilson, 1950. Accession Number: 50.211.18. The ‘X’ incised in footrim is the mark of the dreher Rehschuck which indicates that this is Meissen porcelain rather than Du Paquier.

Maureen Cassidy-Geiger has shown that Bottengruber also worked for a time in Vienna apparently engaged with commissions to the Imperial family. The evidence for this is the use of a fivepointed star on a number of pieces, an emblem of Emperor Charles VI, and a covered bowl in the Metropolitan Museum of Art which has the cypher of and interlaced ‘EC’for Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, wife of Charles VI, The Holy Roman Emperor, below the Imperial Crown of Austria.

Bottengruber signed two pieces in Vienna in 1730, a Vienna slop bowl painted with The Triumph of Bacchus after MaertenJacobsz van Veen, called Heemskerk, which is inscribed “J Bottengruber Siles: f: Viennae 1730” and a beaker and saucer inscribed “J Bottengruber f: Viennae 1730”, both now in the MAK, Vienna.

Bottengruber occasionally worked on Chinese and Viennese porcelain of the Du Paquier period, but more often on Meissen Böttger porcelain.

Top left Meissen porcelain decorated by Ignaz Bottengruber Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Lesley and Emma Schaefer Collection, (1974.356.489)

Top right

Vienna porcelain, Du Paquier period  or Meissen slop bowl inscribed: “J Bottengruber

Siles: f: Viennae 1730” MAK Vienna, Ke 6077

THE FOLLOWERS OF IGNAZ BOTTENGRUBER

Ignaz Bottengruber had two notable amateur followers or students from Breslau.[7] These were both Silesian noblemen who seem to have decorated porcelain for their own pleasure and the delight of their friends and family. The influence of Ignaz Bottengruber is apparent in their shared palette and use of elaborate ornament.

The artist that is not represented in our catalogue is Carl Ferdinand von Wolfsburg (1692-1764) who came from a prominent family in Breslau who is also known to have painted portraits and enamel miniatures. The earliest dated piece by von Wolfsburg is from 1729[8]. A number of pieces are signed in Vienna, such as the Du Paquier tankard in the Metropolitan Museum of Art signed ‘Carolus Fredinandus/ de Wolfsbourg et Wallsdorf/ Eques Silesiae Viennae 1731’, indicating that it was painted in Vienna, where he perhaps accompanied Bottengruber.

We do have two of the rare surviving plates decorated by Hans Gottlieb von Bressler (d.1777), who for the last eleven years of his life was the Mayor of Breslau. Pazaurek was alerted to a group of von Bressler-decorated porcelain, by Dr Karl Berling, that survived with the von Bressler family at their seat of Schloss Lauske, in Upper Lausitz in Silesia. They had acquired the Schloss in 1770 and sold it and the estate in 1932, shortly after this pieces appeared on the market. He was allowed

to study and publish certain pieces by the then Gräfin H. von Bressler (the family had been raised to Imperial Counts or Reichsgrafen in 1792). Von Bressler’s work bears a great similarity to that of Ignaz Bottengruber but Pazaurek was able to identify the differentiating characteristics, noting that the von Bressler pieces are more tentative in their draughtsmanship and lacks some of the free-flowing confidence of the designs of the master.[9]

Errol Manners

[7] See Kuhn 2009, pp. 537 -541 for a full account of their work.

[8] Pazaurek 1923, vol. I, figs. 158 & 159.

[9] Pazaurek 1923, vol. I, pp. 205 - 207.

Top Vienna porcelain, Du Paquier period or Meissen painted by Carl Ferdinand von Wolfsburg in 1731, The Hans Syz Collection, The Gardiner Museum

A GILT-METAL

MOUNTED MEISSEN,

BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, TANKARD

Decorated by Ignaz Bottengruber

Breslau circa 1726

Height 13.6 cm, including thumbpiece 15.6 cm

The silver-gilt footrim within the poinçon I.G.N., the thumbpiece with a dolphin

Painted with a Nereid riding a Triton amongst elaborate gilt scrollwork edged in iron-red festooned with flowers and two putti feeding large birds. The domed gilt-metal mounted cover inset with a silver coin of the 'drei gute Regeln'.

We are able to date this tankard to Bottengruber’s Breslau period around 1726 due to the similarity in treatment to a teabowl and saucer in the British Museum that is marked on the reverse with ‘IB’ 1726 below ‘W’ for Wratislaviensis, the Latin name for Breslau.[1]

The decoration of our tankard and the British Museum teabowl and saucer is adapted from an engraving by Jean Le Pautre.[2]

[1]

Provenance

Pauls-Eisenbeiss Collection, Riehen, sold Christie's Geneva, 30 April 1975, lot 227 (withdrawn from sale) The Rosa Alba Collection Literature

E. Köllman & L. Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Porzellan der europäischen Fabriken, vol. II (1956), p. 152.

Dawson 1995, p. 30 no. 19.

[2] See Casidy-Geiger 1998, fig.30 for another related Le Pautre engraving.

Top The British Museum, (Franks Cat. 123)

Bottom Jean Le Pautre. Frises, feuillages ou tritons marins antiques et moderne, by Jean Le Pautre Circa 1640-82

Meissen, Böttger porcelain

Circa 1725-30

Height 7.6 cm

Decorated with Neptune and a hippocampus amongst elaborate scroll ornament with marine trophies, the reverse with nymphs and dolphins in in a sepia monochrome.

This beaker is from one of Bottengruber’s most ambitious series, each piece decorated with an Ovidian God and their attributes. Maureen Cassidy Geiger suggests Les Douze Mois Grotesque by Jean Audran (1667 - 1756) as a likely source for the overall design; Neptune being represented in Fevrier These were tapestry designs in which Audran was assisted by Watteau but Bottengruber might have had access to them through sheets of French-style ornament issued by publishers in Germany such as Christoph Weigel.[1] Bottengruber was a sufficiently inventive artist to adapt the elements freely to suit his purpose.

A beaker and saucer from the same series is in the Gardiner Museum[2] and another in the Arnhold Collection.[3]

[1] Cassidy-Geiger 1998, pp. 254- 255, figs 36 – 38. See Kisluk-Grosheide 1996 figs. 28-33 for the full series.

[2] Described as being on Du Paquier porcelain, but presumably in fact Meissen, Böttger porcelain. www.emuseum.gardinermuseum.com/objects/1325/ beaker-and-saucer

[3] Cassidy-Geiger 2008. p. 637 no. 323.

Provenance:

· Anon sale Christie’s, London, 28 June 1993, lot 148 Sir Jeffrey Tate and Klaus Kuhlemann, Bonhams, London, 6 December 2018, lot 238 Literature

Cassidy-Geiger 1998, p. 254 fig. 37 R. Roos (ed.), Meissen SO-IL, exhibition catalogue, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfort (2011), p. 30 Exhibited

Amersfort, Kunsthal KAdE, Meissen SO-IL26 May – 28 August 2011

Top Janvier and Fevrier from Les Douze Mois Grotesque by Jean Audran (1667 - 1756)

Meissen, Böttger porcelain

Circa 1725-30

Height 8 cm

Painted with Daphne and Apollo from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, taken from one of the numerous versions of this story, perhaps after the design by Jean Le Pautre engraved by Le Blond.

Top Daphne and Apollo, Jean Le Pautre engraved by Le Blond

The reverse is painted with an unidentified coat of arms with a scrolled shield held by a putto. An almost identical scrolled shield supported by putti occurs on a coffee pot in the Metropolitan Museum of Art which also has the same scene of Daphne and Apollo. This coffee pot has figures of the Zodiac accompanied with six-pointed stars, a symbol of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI (1685 - 1740), and is thought to have been made for him. [1]

A further intriguing feature of this beaker is the shield painted within the foot ring, with an arm holding a ring or a wreath. This is perhaps the arms or crest of the Schiller family of Nuremburg. The same arms appear on at least three other examples of hausmaler work.

1. Nuremburg glass deckelhumpen of 1681 painted in schwarzlot by an unknown hausmaler in the Toledo Museum of Art. [2]

2. In the same distinctive shape of shield on the underside of an outside decorated Böttger porcelain saucer, attributed to Ignaz Preissler, painted with Turkish figures in colours. [3]

3. A Chinese schwarzlot tea bowl and saucer in the British Museum, finely painted with ships in harbour. The arms are concealed in a tiny roundel amongst the waves. [4]

[1] Munger 2018, no. 27, pp. 98 – 100. It was formerly in the Otto Blohm collection, illustrated Schmidt 1953, pl. 34, no.112.

[2] Bosch 1984, no. 344, p. 431. www.emuseum. toledomuseum.org/objects/55655/coveredbeaker-humpen?ctx=2e448ded-dda2-46e5-9d41296d359a3044&idx=1

[3] Sold by Christie’s, London, 7th July 2003, lot 38 from the Emma Schiff von Suvero collection. This was formerly in the MAK, Vienna. Christie’s sold it as Du Paquier but I believe that it was Meissen, Böttger porcelain. This rare type is generally attributed to Ignaz Preissler who is recorded as producing some polychrome pieces, but the attribution is not certain.

[4] Illustrated Krahl & Harrison-Hall 1994, no 157. The reverse of the saucer bears two coats of arms that have been identified as belonging to the Herringk and Minwegen families (but this may not be correct).

A series of at least six faience dishes is known painted by the same hand and emblazoned with the same arms; (Pazaurek 1925, vol.1, fig.19. Müller-Hofstede 1983, figs. 53-6. Vogt, no. 22.) These represent the only instance of this type of decoration occurring both on Oriental porcelain and faience and perhaps represent a transitional phase between the Nuremberg and Bohemian traditions.

Opposite The reverse of our beaker showing the unidentified armorial Top Coffee pot by Ignaz Bottengruber, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Gift of R. Thornton Wilson, in memory of Florence Ellsworth Wilson, 1950

I speculate that there may be some connection between the Schiller family and the man named Schüller that Maureen Cassidy-Geiger noted:

‘In 1701 Ehrenfried Walter von Tschirnhaus, who was later to co-discover the secret of true porcelain with Johann Friedrich Böttger, visited Amsterdam and The Hague for the purpose of industrial espionage on behalf of his master Augustus the Strong of Saxony. Tschirnhaus spoke with a man named Schüller who told him “of a common man who lives not far from Breslau and who can paint quite beautifully on porcelain. Then he showed me some very beautiful pieces, which the Dutch had liked so much that they wanted to pay a lot of money in order to have him in Delft. I hope he will be of service to me in my porcelain plan”. [5]

The spelling of names was often phonetic, and Schiller can be pronounced as Schüller, specially in Saxony.

Provenance

Sotheby’s, London, 22 February 1966, lot 60

HANS GOTTLIEB VON BRESSLER

Meissen porcelain

Circa 1734

Diam. 22.8 cm

Crossed swords mark in underglaze-blue, incised dreher's mark of an ‘X’ to inside edge of footrim for Johann Daniel Rehschuh

Painted in dark puce camaïeu with a pastoral scene of cows, a piper and a lady spinning within a gilded cartouche, flanked by flower bouquets tied with iron-red ribbons. The central scene may be adapted from one of the many etchings by Nicolaes Berchem.

Top Nicolaes Berchem, published by Nicolaes Visscher I, 1635-1683

A similarly decorated covered bowl, for which our plate was possible the stand, is signed with Bressler’s initials and dated 1734.

This plate is from a small set that were preserved in the possession of the Counts von Bressler (Breslau or now Wroclaw) in Schloss Lauske until at least 1925 when published by Pazaurek, the family sold the castle and estate in 1932 and shortly afterwards pieces appeared on the market. The top plate and the covered bowl are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Provenance

The Collection of the Counts of Bressler, Schloss Lauske (until at least 1925) Rudolph Lepke’s Kunst-Auctions-Haus, 7 & 8 October 1936, lot 180 [1]

Property from the Collection of Margot Gottlieb, sold, Sotheby's New York, 20 October, 1994, lot 402

Antiquitäten C. Bednarczyk, Vienna

The collection of Melinda and Paul Sullivan

Literature

Gustav E. Pazaurek, Deutsche Fayence-und Porzellan hausmaler, Leipzig, 1925, Vol. I, col. pl. 18.

[1] I am grateful to Sebastian Kuhn for this information. The catalogue can be seen at: www.digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/ lepke1936_10_07/0003/thumbs

Top Pazaurek 1925, plates 17 & 18

HANS GOTTLIEB VON BRESSLER

Meissen porcelain

Circa 1735-40

Diam. 21. 4 cm

Crossed swords in underglaze-blue Black lacquer inventory mark ‘A70’

Painted with children playing and swinging on ropes between two trees within elaborate gilt scrolls, the border with four panels of fruit and flowers.

Other plates from the series, are in the Arnhold Collection [1] , (Now in the Frick Collection), New York, three in The Metropolitan Museum, New York [2], The Gardiner Museum, Toronto and The Hans Syz Collection, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC[3]. Some of the children’s games depicted on these plates follow closely designs from 'Les Jeux et plaisirs de l'enfance' by Jacques Stella, published in Paris in 1657. Some like ours are more loosely adapted. Elements of these children’s games were also introduced to the German-speaking lands through the engravings of Daniel Marot from his Second Livre d'Ornaments via Paul Decker and Jeremias Wolff.[4]

[1] Cassidy-Geiger 2008, p. 642, no. 325.

[2] Metropolitan Museum accession nos. 1974.356.316, 1974.356.317 and 50.211.243.

[3] Syz, Miller & Rűckert 1979, p. 514, no. 347.

[4] I am grateful to Maureen Cassidy-Geiger for pointing this out.

Provenance

Sir Jeffrey Tate and Klaus Kuhlemann Bonhams, Important Meissen Porcelain from a Private Collection, Part I, 16 November 2005, lot 48

Top Les Jeux et Plaisirs de l'Enfance (1657), after Jaques Stella (16361697) Bibliothèque Municipal de Lyon

S ECTION SIX

AUGSBURG

CATALOGUE ENTRIES 23 – 33

When Gustav Pazaurek wrote Deutsche Fayence und Porzellan Hausmaler in 1925, nearly 100 years ago, he considered that almost all of the Augsburg hausmaler decoration was produced by Johann Aufenwerth. It was his opinion that such decoration ended in Augsburg with his death in 1728.

In December 1938 W. B. Honey of the Victoria and Albert Museum published a Meissen teabowl and saucer with gilt chinoiserie decoration inscribed ‘Augsta den 1° Feb. 1736 Soli Deo Gloria A. Seite’. Honey suggested that ‘A. Seite’ was in fact Abraham Seuter (Seiter, Seutter and Saitter being alternative spellings of the name) and that ‘Augsta’ is for Augusta Vindelicorum, the Latin name of Augsburg. [1]

This inspired the great Swiss scholar Siegfried Ducret to scour the records of the Augsburg city council, the Augsburg protestant churches and contemporary travel writers to find out more about Abraham Seuter, the Seuter family more widely and the Aufenwerths. He found that Abraham was recorded as a ‘Kunstmaler’ and that he was the brother of the already wellknown Bartholomäus Seuter. He established that the Seuters ran the most important hausmaler workshop in Augsburg in the early 18th Century. He also showed that the Aufenwerth decorating workshop did not end with the death of the father, but that his daughters Elizabeth Wald and Sabine Hosennestel continued it. [2]

In 1971, Ducret published his extensive findings in what is now the seminal book on the subject, Meissner Porzellan Bemalt in Augsburg, 1718 bis um 1750. His astonishing depth of research and dedicated scholarship remains fundamental to our understanding of the subject and is the platform from which we still work. Because of the scant evidence of signed pieces at his disposal, however, some assumptions he made were speculative and some of the information he found could perhaps on reflection be more important than first recognised. Nineteen years later in 1990, Rainer Rückert published Biographische Daten der Meißener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, in which he showed that Bartholomäus Seuter received contracts from Meissen to decorate porcelain in 1722, 1723, and three more in 1724, 1725 and 1729 in which he is described as a trading partner [3]. These findings have never been incorporated into the study of the subject and present a significant shift in our understanding of the relationship between the Seuter workshop and the Meissen factory. They also show that the Seuter workshop was operating before 1726 as Ducret had previously assumed.

More recently, Sebastian Kuhn published a description of a Meissen gold-decorated eagle teapot (Adlerkanne) [see catalogue number 25] in a Meissen inventory of 1721. [4] Since all known gold-decorated examples of this form are from the Seuter workshop this is evidence of them operating earlier still. We also know more about the Aufenwerth production. At the time of Ducret’s publication, there were no known signed examples of Sabina Aufenwerth’s work [5], but with T.H. Clarke’s discovery of the Hosennestel Service in 1985 [6], we can now get some insight into her work.

Almost 100 years on from when Pazaurek first tackled the subject of Augsburg decoration, and in the light of discoveries made over the last 53 years since the publication of Ducret’s Meissner Porzellan, we believe that it is time to review the subject, attempt to clarify some of the confusion that has arisen over the years and where there are unanswered questions, pose them anew.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

Top Meissen porcelain, decorated in Augsburg inscribed ‘Augsta den 1° Feb. 1736 Soli Deo Gloria A. Seite’ Victoria and Albert Museum (C.156 & A-1937)

Honey 1938, pp. 326 – 329, fig. 1.

See Ducret 1971, vol I, IX-X for a discussion on his contribution to the subject and that of those before him.

Rückert 1990, p. 194.

Kuhn 2021.

Ducret 1971, vol I, p. 3; although elsewhere he does mention the occurrence of a SAW cipher and relates it to Sabine Aufenwerth.

Clarke 1985.

AUGSBURG

Despite being about 440 kilometers away, and with no river connection, Augsburg, home to both the Seuter and Aufenwerth workshops, was one of the most prominent centres for hausmaler work on Meissen.

Paul von Stetten (1731-1808) wrote of Augsburg in his "Erläuterung" (Explanations) of 1756: "White Saxon porcelain has been beautifully and artfully painted here. Bartholomäus Seuter, the silk dyer, a man very skilful in all smelting work and well disposed to beautiful inventions; Johannes Aufenwerth, a goldsmith and his daughter Mrs Hosennestlin […] have produced such works and decorated them with beautiful gilding and silver plating, which are held in high esteem." [1]

The Seuter workshop is the more significant of the two, which we now understand to have had a formal contractual relationship with the Meissen factory until around 1730.[2] We propose, in fact, that during the 1720s the Seuter, George Funcke [see catalogue number 5] and J. G. Höroldt [see catalogue numbers 6-8] workshops, as well as the various other decorators contracted by Meissen in this early period, should be thought of as parallel decorating branches of the Meissen manufactory. It is only when the Höroldt workshop was fully integrated into Meissen in 1731 that this relationship changed for the Seuter workshop, after which they can be thought of as a genuinely independent decorating studio.

As an example of the two workshops being treated with the same regard, it is interesting to draw a comparison between two tea and coffee services, both given to Vittorio Amadeo II of Savoy in 1725 by Augustus the Strong of Saxony. One decorated in the Höroldt workshop, amongst the richest and most important of his tea services; and another Seuter-decorated service that matches the description of a service published in the Arnhold collection, now in The Frick Collection (acc No. 2016.9.17) [3]. This service was noted by Ducret, but he believed that being recorded in 1725, it predated the Seuter workshop.[4]

Another link between the Seuter workshop and the Meissen factory are a small number of gold decorated pieces from the Seuter workshop that follow a set of engravings by

Top left Teapot from the Vittorio Amadeo Service decorated by J. G Höroldt, Palazzo Madama, Turin;

Top right Seuter-decorated teapot probably given to Vittorio Amadeo II of Savoy in 1725, Arnhold Collection

Johann Gregorius Höroldt, produced in 1726. These engravings were produced on a printing press specially purchased by the Meissen factory and were intended as master copies for sub-contractors to follow their designs [5]. We know of the four engravings signed ‘J G Höroldt inv et fecit 1726’, one more with only his signature, and also the designs in the Schultz codex [6] . It would seem as if both workshops had access to these designs as there are chinoiseries found on Meissen decorated in the Höroldt workshop that are replicated in the gold decoration of the Seuter workshop. Ducret suggests that the Seuter workshop may have copied designs directly from Meissen porcelain but given what we now understand of the relationship between the Seuter workshop and the Meissen factory it seems much more likely that they were given the designs by the Meissen factory. [7]

A third important workshop in Augsburg was that of the silversmith Elias Adam, who was responsible for the silver-gilt mounts added to many of the Seuter decorated wares [see catalogue numbers 29 & 31], pieces decorated in the Höroldt workshop, and even some earlier Böttger stonewares. It seems as if there was a close relationship between Elias Adam and the Seuter workshops, but it is not clear whether they both had direct relationships with the Meissen factory or whether the mounting of Meissen porcelain and stoneware in Augsburg was mediated by Bartholomäus Seuter.[8] Sebastian Kuhn mentions that Johann Friedrich Böttger himself sent stoneware to Augsburg silver dealers, to be mounted and sold on. According to Kuhn, by 1733 Meissen had a direct relationship with six of these Augsburg. dealers.[9]

[1] See Ducret 1971, vol I, p1-2.

[2] See Rückert 1990, p. 194.

[3] See Cassidy-Geiger 2008, p 571-573, No. 274.

[4] See Ducret 1971, vol I, p12.

[5] See Schommers 2004, 228-230.

[6] The Schultz codex contains is a compilation of designs that are found on Meissen porcelain of the Höroldt and Seuter workshops. There has been much discussion over what it’s purpose was, but it seems likely that it was a design book for the decorators to work from as well as a record of executed designs.

[7] See Ducret, Vol 1, pp19-31 for a discussion of Abraham Seuter’s gold decoration.

THE SEUTER WORKSHOP

The travel writer Johann Keyssler visited Augsburg on 1 June 1729, and wrote: "Seuter sells the most beautiful porcelain works, which he buys in white from Dresden and has made them even more precious with beautiful painting and enamelling." [10]

The Seuter workshop consisted of the brothers Bartholomäus (1678-1754), Johann Paulus (1680-1735), Abraham (1689-1747) and perhaps another brother, Johannes (1686-1719) who may have had some involvement, albeit short lived as he died in 1719 before the Seuter workshop had taken off. Johann Paulus is discussed by Ducret, but not at length. It seems clear however that he was working alongside Bartholomäus and Abraham. When he died in 1735, he was recorded as living together with Abraham and Bartholomäus in the house of Bartholomäus’ wife Regina zur Helle [11]. Also, recorded in the Augsburg city archives, an individual called Hackl is quoted as saying in 1747: "Bartholomäus Seuter and his two now deceased brothers had been doing such gallantry and grotto work unchallenged for 30 years." Siegfried Ducret explains that the description of ‘grotto work’ would have included decoration on porcelain. Abraham and Johann Paulus are the only brothers that this description could credibly refer to. [12]

We know that Bartholomäus followed in his father’s footsteps, became a goldsmith and was registered as a guild member. We know very little about the other brothers’ artistic education but can presume that they either learned their craft from their father, under the tutelage of Bartholomäus Seuter

or both.[13] Abraham was first mentioned as a Kunstmahler (art-painter) in the baptism record of his son Bartholomäus in 1729, he was previously described as a mahler (painter) in his wedding record of 1727. Johann Paulus is described as a goldsmith like Bartholomäus in his wedding record of 1726. [14] Bartholomäus Seuter was the driving force behind the enterprise and is the name consistently mentioned in contemporary sources. In 1707 he married into a wealthy family of silk dyers and was inducted into their family trade. By the time of his father-in-law’s death in 1721, he was in charge of that business.[15] At around the same time, he started being contracted to decorate porcelain for the Meissen factory. The 1721 inventory of the Meissen factory describes a ‘round partially gilt teapot with a pinched neck with an eagle instead of the spout and a clean handle, on which there is a small angel head, along with a round, partially gilt handle with a flat finial’ [see catalogue number 25]. [16] A year later records exist, in the Meissen archives, of payments to Bartholomäus Seuter from the Meissen factory for gilding porcelain. These contracts continue to at least 1729 and in them, he is described as a trading partner.[17] On 10 December 1726 he was also given

Top Catalogue number 25, 'Meissen, Böttger porcelain, eagle teapot (Adlerkanne)', p. 118

the privilege of ‘melting’ silver and gold onto porcelain by the city of Augsburg, in which it was expressly stated that it was ‘his invention’ to decorate in gold and silver. [18] It is not clear exactly what the invention could have been as there were other decorators, such as Johann Aufenwerth and George Funcke who had successfully decorated Meissen porcelain with gold and silver gilt decoration too.

As well as running the workshop, Bartholomäus was responsible for a small number of very fine and characterful works on faience [see catalogue number 23]. They are distinctive for their elaborate borders of birds and flowers, sometimes gathered together at the base with a fluttering ribbon. They are mostly unsigned, but Siegfried Ducret illustrates a jug dated 1717 and signed BS and a small tankard signed BS, both in the Hamburg Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe and a further jug signed ‘BS’, for Bartholomäus Seuter. [19] Two further jugs by the same hand also dated 1717 are known, both are unsigned and both are published in Pazaurek, [20] one of them, in the Neuner collection, published again by Ziffer .[21] Ducret suggested in 1971 that Bartholomäus was not active in the Seuter workshop as a painter, and that the faience and porcelain pieces he did decorate were produced as a leisure pursuit, using a muffle kiln that he is known to have had is his garden. He dates all of Bartholomäus’ work on porcelain and faience to between 1717-1730. He said ‘after the death of his father-in-law, Dietrich zur Helle, in 1721 he had to devote himself entirely to the silk dyeing and textile factory, which, according to Paul von Stetten [writing in 1779], gave him a lot of worry’ [22]. Ducret was not however aware of Dr Rückert’s discovery published in 1990 of Bartholomäus Seuter’s contract to decorate porcelain in the Meissen archives in 1722, and his trading relationship with the factory beyond that. [23] He was under the impression that the Seuter workshop was set up in 1726 by Bartholomäus to help his brother Abraham to sell his decorated wares [24]. Given what we now know of the concurrence of Bartholomäus Seuter’s work on faience and the emergence of the activities of the Seuter workshop, that Bartholomäus headed and presumably funded, it is hard to imagine that he would not have had a hand in its artistic direction and at least in the early years been involved with the decoration of porcelain as well.

As further evidence of this, Ducret quotes Paul von Stetten in 1779: “Johannes is an important painter, his brother Bartholomäus Seuter, who was actually a silk dyer, but who loved the arts immensely, especially in enamel work, painted very beautifully on white Saxon porcelain and knew how to handle its gilding very skillfully” [25]. Paul von Stetten does not mention Abraham, there are many possible interpretations of why this might be the case.

In 1925, Pazaurek ascribed most of what is now thought of as Seuter workshop decorated porcelain to Johann Aufenwerth and believed that hausmaler decoration in Augsburg ended with his death in 1728.[26] In 1971, Ducret shifted the dial and attributed the majority of the Seuter production to Abraham. He recognised Bartholomäus’ involvement with the enterprise but as we have discussed, did not believe he was decorating

porcelain, and he acknowledged that Johann Paulus may have been active too, but due to a lack of signed works did not attribute anything to his hand.

Ducret’s attributions to Abraham Seuter were based on the only two then-known signed examples of his work, dated to 1731 and to 1736 [27], both of which are gilded with chinoiserie decoration. On the basis of these pieces, he concluded that: ‘One can safely say that Abraham Seuter painted the most beautiful chinoiseries. It is a special peculiarity of Abraham Seuter that he frames the Chinese scenes he etched onto the gold background of the plate with a curved band in which the reserves are drawn.’ He extrapolated by a process of stylistic comparisons and connoisseurship that the best work of the

Seuter workshop was produced by Abraham Seuter. In his opinion, the ‘most beautiful paintings were based on engravings by Watteau’. Of these he said: ‘Based on the quality of these paintings, they can only be attributed to the artist Abraham Seuter …. In terms of finesse, color combination and painting technique, they surpass anything that has ever appeared in The hausmaler category’ [28]

Top A Meissen travelling case decorated in the Seuter workshop, signed Abraham Seuter and dated 1731, Sammlung Ludwig in Bamberg

Bottom Meissen porcelain, decorated in Augsburg inscribed ‘Augsta den 1° Feb. 1736 Soli Deo Gloria A. Seite’ Victoria and Albert Museum (C.156 & A-1937)

This hypothesis was confirmed by the discovery of a signed coffeepot, published five years later in Keramos by Hans Mischell. The decoration on the coffeepot is after an engraving by Johann Elias Ridinger (1698 - 1767) but painted in a fashion that bears comparison to the Watteau engravings Ducret was referring to. Mischell commented that considering the limited information at his disposal it was a testament to the remarkable scholarly deduction of Ducret that he reached the conclusion that this group of pieces was painted by Abraham Seuter [29] . A coffeepot with decoration after Johann Elias Ridinger, Signed A.S on the trumpet, and Seuter on the collar of the dog. [30] It is significant also that J. E. Ridinger is the engraver of this design and many others which we find on Seuter-decorated pieces. Ridinger was married to Jacobina zur Helle (since 1723) who was the sister of Bartholomäus’ wife Regina zur Helle and the widow of Johann Seuter who died in 1719; he was also godfather to Abraham Seuter’s daughter Regina Barbara, baptised in 1738. [31] Ducret suggests that certain Seuter workshop pieces may have even been decorated by him, which, while possible, cannot be proven. [32]

With Mischell’s discovery of the coffee pot, we confidently take Ducret’s suggestion that Abraham was responsible for some of the Watteau designs and credit him with some of the finest work produced by the Seuter workshop, especially in the later years as the workshop seems to have ended with his death in 1747. However, this leaves the question open of what might have been decorated by Bartholomäus and Johann Paulus. Judging by the quality of Bartholomäus’ work on faience we can presume his work would have been just as good as Abraham’s, and Johann Paulus’ work remains an unknown.

Another noteworthy group of pieces are the elaborate polychrome scenes often set against solid gold grounds. While there are no signed examples of this type, it seems likely that they were also decorated in the Seuter studio. The coffee pot opposite bottom is part of a coffee and tea service known as the ‘Berner Service’ that was originally kept in a travelling box bearing the Saxon crown, suggesting a royal association. If we are to assume that the Seuter workshop had a formal relationship with Meissen factory and the Aufenwerths did not, then it would seem probable that this set and the type more widely were likely to have been produced in the Seuter workshop. The mounts on this coffeepot suggest it was produced between 1726 and 1730. [33]

A complication, which Ducret recognised, is that it is very difficult to draw a convincing chronology for the work from the Seuter workshop. There is a distinct absence of signed or dated pieces between 1717 and 1731. It is possible the practice of signing wares was forbidden under their arrangements with the Meissen factory. The two dated examples we have highlighted are relatively late in the timeline, and there are only a small number of pieces we can date to the earlier period in the 1720s. These include the service given to Victor Amadeus II of Savoy given in 1725, the group of gold-decorated pieces after the 1726 designs of Höroldt, and the eagle teapot referred to in the Meissen inventory of 1721.

One of the issues is that most of the porcelain used in the

Seuter workshop is Böttger porcelain. It seems that in the twenties they were receiving porcelain directly from the Meissen factory, under contract to decorate it. The eagle teapots and Wasserman forms for instance, appear to have been almost exclusively produced to be decorated in the Seuter workshop [see catalogue numbers 24 & 25] [34]. Later, when they were working as an independent workshop, they would have had to buy the porcelain and would have only had access to the same early forms they were being contracted to decorate in the twenties, now out of fashion, as the newer products would have been sent straight to the Höroldt workshop.

[10] See Ducret 1971, vol I, p. 6.

[11] See Ducret 1971, vol I, p6.

[12] See Ducret 1971, vol. II, p. 2.

[13] See Ducret 1971, vol. II, p. 3.

[14] See Ducret 1971, vol I, p. 6-9.

[15] See Ducret 1971, vol. II, p. 3.

[16] See Kuhn 2012.

[17] In 1990 Rainer Rückert published previously unknown records in the archives of the Meissen manufactory which documented two payments to Bartholomäus Seuter between September 1722 and May 1723 for gilding porcelain; “Herr Bartholomäus Seutem in Augspurg wegen 3 Servise zu vergolden 135 Taler 12 Groschen” and “Seuthern dem Goldarbeiter in Augspurg vor Porcell: zu vergolden 82 Taler“. Rückert notes three further mentions in 1724,1725 and 1729 which describe Seuter as a “Correspondenten” or trading partner, see Rückert 1990, p. 194.

[18] See Ducret 1971, vol. I, p. 8.

[19] See Ducret 1971, vol II, plates 1-14.

[20] See Pazaurek 1925, pp. 92 & 94, pl. 6, no. 72.

[21] See Ziffer 2005, p. 56, no. 22.

[22] See Ducret 1971, vol. II, p. 2.

[23] Ducret did speculate that Meissen may have been sent to Augsburg on consignment but did not suggest that this was the case for the Seuter workshop. See Ducret 1971, vol. I, p. 9-10.

[24] See Ducret 1971, vol. II, p. 2.

[25] See Ducret 1971, vol. II, p. 2.

[26] See Ducret 1971, vol. I1, p. IX.

[27] First Published by Honey 1938 fig. 1.

[28] For more on Ducret’s attribution of pieces to Abraham Seuter, see Ducret 1971 pp. 18-28.

[29] See Mischell 1976.

[30] See Mischell 1976, p. 6 for a picture of the other side.

[31] See Ducret 1971, vol I, p. 9.

[32] See Ducret 1971, vol I, p. 36.

[33] See Schommers 2004, 238-239.

[34] There are a few exceptions that seem to have been decorated in the Aufenwerth workshop. One eagle teapot, a small number of Wasserman teapots too.

Top A coffeepot with decoration after Johann Elias Ridinger, Signed A.S on the trumpet, and Seuter on the collar of the dog. [30]

Bottom A coffeepot from the Berner Service, Lustheim

THE AUFENWERTH WORKSHOP

This workshop was established by Johann Aufenwerth (1659-1728), a silversmith and enameller. There are only a small number of pieces known that are signed by Johann Aufenwerth, including a group of five gilt chinoiserie teabowls and saucers, bearing the initials IAW that are now in Schloss Lustheim [35] and a beaker and saucer in the British Museum (illustrated top). In 1925, Pazaurek attributed much of what is now considered to have been produced in the Seuter workshop to Johann Aufenwerth. However, since Ducret’s reassessment of the subject a relatively small amount of work has been attributed to him on porcelain. Ducret says ‘In addition to his profession as a gold worker, Aufenwerth probably painted porcelain occasionally from 1715 until his death in 1728.’ [36] It would seem probable that his work on porcelain was more than occasional, considering the variety of work signed by him on enamel and porcelain; and also that his tradition of decorating porcelain was continued by his two daughters Anna Elizabeth and Sabina. He taught the art of decorating porcelain to his daughters, Anna-Elizabeth Wald (née Aufenwerth) (1696 - after 1748) and Sabine Hosennestel (née Aufenwerth) (1706 - 1782). Paul von Stetten wrote in 1779 that: " the gold worker Johann Aufenwerth and his daughter, Mrs. Hosennestel, were extremely skilled at painting and gilding porcelain.” [37]. Their father’s influence in their work is clear, see for instance the finely drawn strapwork in the cartouches of the beaker and saucer in the British Museum (top) in comparison to the beakers from the Hosennestel Service (opposite top). There has been much effort made in

trying to distinguish between the work of the Aufenwerth sisters, but as suggested by Langeloh Porcelain it is probably more helpful to think of them as a single workshop, especially considering that they shared a studio on Schongauergasse [38] . While it is tempting with the small number of signed examples to assign styles to each of them, particularly from the Hosennestel Service for Sabina [39], and the signed pieces by Elizabeth Wald on Künersberg faience in 1748 [40], it is clear that there is overlap between their styles and it seems likely they collaborated on much of their work.

It is notable that one does not often find much Aufenwerth decoration on Chinese porcelain, and that despite producing work up to about 1750, most of it is found on early Böttger porcelain. Presumably, much like the Seuter workshop in their later phase of working as an independent workshop, they would have only had access to the older, out-of-fashion forms. They may have had difficulty accessing Meissen porcelain in the later part of their careers, when they produced an interesting range of designs on Künersberg faience around 1745-50.

[See catalogue number 33].

[35] See Pazaurek 1925, p. 134, pl 108.

[36] See Ducret 1971, vol I, p. 18.

[37] See Ducret, vol II p. 1.

[38] See Langeloh Porcelain 2010.

[39] See Clarke 1985 for a discussion on the Hosennestel Service.

[40] See Ducret 1971, vol II, pp. 104-105, pl. 84-87.

[41] llustrated in Ducret, vol I, p. 259, pl. 348.

Top Beaker and saucer by Johann Aufenwerth, signed IAW British Museum (Mus. No. Franks.122)

Top Two beakers from the Hosennestel Service, produced in 1731 for the wedding of Sabine Hosennestel to her husband. Sold at Lempertz 16.11.2018, lot 758.

Bottom A cup and saucer with the EW cipher of Elizabeth Wald [41]

OTHER THOUGHTS ON ATTRIBUTION

While this does bring us to a point of understanding, it still leaves much uncertainty. Some of the confusion that has occurred is borne out of attributions and extrapolations that have been passed down, swapped around and mixed up over the years. It would perhaps be more helpful for the development of understanding of this complicated subject - much like Langeloh discuss in respect of their travel case decorated in the Aufenwerth workshop [42] – to make attributions to either the Seuter or Aufenwerth workshop and to be cautious when attributing to a particular painter.

It is probable that Johann Aufenwerth produced a greater variety of work than the small sample of signed pieces suggest. It is also probable that Bartholomäus Seuter decorated more than we understand in the Seuter workshop, particularly in the early years. We should assume that Johann Paulus and possibly Johannes painted in the Seuter workshop too. We should also recognise that the chronology of the decoration is, in many instances, unclear. However, there are some clues. Mounted objects can lend an absolute end-date to when the decoration could have been added, as mounting with silver or silver-gilt would have been the last process, added after the enamel decoration. The engraving sources can also provide a start date. There is also the superb and extensive service from the Munich Residenz now in the Bayerisches National Museum decorated with hunting scenes after Johann Elias Ridinger, with a large dish dated 1732, on a mixture of Meissen and Chinese porcelain. It is a rare instance of Chinese porcelain being used by

Augsburg decorators; perhaps because large chargers were not readily available in Meissen porcelain at this time, or it might have been a reflection of the weakening ties between Meissen and Augsburg after the incorporation of the Höroldt workshop into Meissen.

Considering the strong ties to Meissen of the Seuter workshop it is reasonable to assume that they produced the majority of hausmaler work in Augsburg, and it is also possible to reach this conclusion by a process of deduction from the distinctive stylistic features of signed pieces and pieces that are demonstrably from the Seuter workshop. Equally, the signed Aufenwerth pieces form a distinct group. Between these sets, there remain a number of pieces that in my opinion are probably Seuter workshop but could, with the evidence of new signed pieces, ultimately be proven to be from the Aufenwerth workshop. It seems incongruous after all for the Aufenwerth workshop that was decorating on Meissen porcelain from around 1715 to 1750 should be responsible for such a small body of work, and for them after producing a very limited range of styles to suddenly produce a wide and varied new array of styles on Künersberg at the end of their career.

Because of the close association of the Seuter workshop with both the Meissen factory and the Elias Adam workshop, an Augsburg-decorated piece with Elias Adam mounts is likely to be decorated in the Seuter workshop rather than that of the Aufenwerth’s. In the instance of our ecuelle and stand [catalogue number 29] the relationship seems particularly

close as it would seem as if the porcelain itself was designed to be mounted in silver, as the form does not work without the addition of handles.

Another feature which Ducret discusses are the cursive marks in faint iron red often found on pieces from the Seuter workshop. They do not, however, seem to occur on pieces produced in the Aufenwerth workshop. Ducret suggests that they may represent the initials of the client who ordered the piece but concludes that it is not entirely clear. It has also been suggested that these marks may have been applied at Meissen as instructions for the decorator. [43] For examples of Seuter workshop pieces with such marks, see catalogue number 25, and multiple items in the schwarzlot service, catalogue number 31. [44]

Henry Manners

J. E Ridinger, dated 1732 Seuter workshop, Augsburg Bayerisches National Museum

Opposite left Chinese dish with gold decoration after

Opposite right Coffee pot on the left, Metropolitan Museum attributed to Abraham Seuter (1974.28.122a, b); Goblet on the right signed by Johann Aufenwerth, Kulturmuseum St. Gallen (G 17642)

Top left Catologue item 29, 'Meissen, Böttger porcelain, silver-mounted twohandled ecuelle, cover and stand', p.124

[42] See Langeloh Porcelain 2010.

[43] This was a suggestion made by Dr Rückert in conversation with Sebastian Kuhn.

[44] See Ducret, vol I p. 40 for Ducret’s discussion on lustre marks.

BARTOLOMÄUS SEUTER

Decorated in Augsburg

A pewter-mounted German faience jug or ‘Enghalskrug’ Frankfurt or Hanau

Circa 1717-1725

Height to rim of jug 26.1 cm

Height to the tip of finial 29.3 cm

Decorated in purple camaieu with an oval roundel of the Holy Family, Joseph, Mary and Jesus. Surrounding them is an intricate wreath of flowers, branches and vines with two parrots, a blue tit and a goldfinch. Two insects cover firing imperfections.

Alfred Ziffer comments that Bartholomäus Seuter brought a new aesthetic to the tradition of hausmaler decoration that included rich borders of naturalistic flowers and birds and developed the use of cartouches, which became a model for his contemporaries.[1]

While Bartholomäus Seuter’s distinctive style of floral bouquets interspersed with native and exotic birds and insects is rarely found on Meissen porcelain and mostly reserved for faience, we do find some of his more ambitious pictorial scenes often in monochrome on some of the porcelain wares of the Seuter workshop. [See catalogue numbers 26-28 for further discussion of this topic].[2]

[1] See Ziffer 2005, p. 56.

[2] See Ducret 1971, vol. II, pp. 3-6 for a discussion on known works of Bartholomäus Seuter. A jug is referred to as being signed B.S. amongst plates 1-8, pp. 57-64 but it is not entirely clear which piece he is referring to.

Bottom Bartholomäus Seuter on Meissen, formerly in the West Collection, sold at Christies

MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, EAGLE TEAPOT (AD L E RKANN E )

Undecorated

Circa 1713-1720

Width 16.8 cm

Height 12.8 cm

With domed cover, the spout crisply modelled as an eagle with outspread wings, the scroll handle surmounted by a child’s head.

This most dramatic of early Meissen teapot forms was probably one of the first models designed by Johann Jakob Irminger, the Dresden court silversmith, who was employed at Meissen from 1710 to create new designs (So die inventions und neuen Desseins besorget). The model first appears in Böttger stoneware with a slightly squatter body and is listed in the 1711 inventory of the Meissen manufactory as 'Thee Krügel mit den ganzen Adler' [Teapot with the whole eagle][1]. Our example in white Böttger porcelain is modelled without the raised talons found on most of the Augsburg gilded examples and is perhaps an early prototype.

For Augustus the Strong, owner of the Meissen factory and King of Poland, an eagle with outspread wings was of particular significance as it represented Poland’s highest order of chivalry, The Order of the White Eagle, which he established on 1 November 1705. It was given to eight of his closest diplomatic and political supporters.

Nearly all of the known examples of this form are decorated in gold in Augsburg. Only one other white example, from the Marjorie West Collection now in the High Museum, Atlanta, (accession no. 2018.166 a-b), is recorded. Our one was formerly in a German aristocratic collection.[2]

MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, EAGLE TEAPOT (AD L E RKANN E )

Decorated in the Seuter workshop

Probably by Abraham Seuter, or perhaps another of the Seuter brothers

The porcelain circa 1713-20, the decoration 1720-25

Width 17.2 cm

Height 13 cm

Faint cursive gilder’s mark to the base

A porcelain example of this model, also gilded, is described in the 1721 inventory of the manufactory as 'Ein sauberer, rund gedruckter am Halße etwas vergoldeter Theé Pot mit einem Adler statt der Schnauze und einem saubern Henckel, worauf ein Engle Köpffgen, nebst einen runden, etwas vergoldeten Deckel mit einem platten Knöpffgen' [A clean, round partially gilt teapot with a pinched neck with an eagle instead of the spout and a clean handle, on which there is a small angel head, along with a round, partially gilt handle with a flat finial]. [1]

We can assume that because of the contracts we have found stating Bartholomäus Seuter’s trading relationship [2] with Meissen and the evidence of an Adlerkanne in the Meissen inventory of 1721, that this piece is attributable to the Seuter workshop. While it is tempting to attribute all Seuter-gilded pieces to the hand of Abraham Seuter, this attribution is

solely based on two later signed examples dated 1731, and 1736. It is reasonable to think that at this time, Johann Paulus and Bartholomaus Seuter might also have been decorating in this style.

Provenance

“Aus Fränkischem Adelsbesitz/ Schlossinventar”. From a Franconian baronial family where it had probably been since the early 18th century. It was recently found in a cupboard in the castle.

[1] Kuhn 2012, lot 17.

[2] See Rückert 1990, p. 194.

MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, SAUCER

Decorated in the Seuter workshop, probably by Bartholomäus Seuter Circa 1720-25

Diam. 12.4 cm

Painted in iron-red, decorated with a gentleman reclining in a chair smoking a pipe and resting a tankard on his lap. A plant, perhaps a tobacco plant, is placed prominently in the background.

These beautifully painted saucers are executed in a more painterly manner and more delicately graduated tones than even than the Watteau scenes discussed by Ducret. They are also decorated in monochrome, whereas the Watteau scenes and associated decoration are painted in shades of grey with additional flesh tones. The hand is close to the monochrome scenes one finds on Bartholomäus Seuter’s faience [See catalogue number 23]. One jug, formerly of the Vater Collection (and illustrated top) [1] has a scene that is particularly closely related to our saucer [See catalogue number 27], that could even be from the same series of prints, but more pertinently seems to be of the same quality and painted in the same style.

Perhaps these saucers are painted by Bartholomäus Seuter in the early years of the Seuter workshop, c. 1720-25. This early dating is confirmed by the similarity of the gilt border decoration, laub und bandelwerk, to that on the golddecorated service from the Arnhold Collection, now in the Frick Collection, considered to have been a gift to Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoy in 1725 [2]

Top Compare to detail of jug attributed to the hand of Bartholomäus Seuter, circa 1720, formerly of the Vater Collection

Bottom Saucer from the golddecorated given to Vittorio Amadeo II, Arnhold Collection

[1] Sold at Christies London, 16 Dec 2021, Vater Collection. [2] See Arnhold 2008, pp. 571-573.

MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, SAUCER

Decorated in the Seuter workshop, probably by Bartholomäus Seuter Circa 1720-25 Diam. 12.4 cm

Painted in iron-red with a man, perhaps an alchemist, next to a furnace, holding a pair of tongs. Beside him are a flask and bottle, one laid on its side and the other with a stopper in it.

MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, SAUCER

Decorated in the Seuter workshop, probably by Bartholomäus Seuter Circa 1720-25 Diam. 12.3 cm

Painted in iron-red, with a noble female figure wearing a feathered headdress and holding a spear. She seems to be representing America.

MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, SILVER-MOUNTED TWO-HANDLED ECUELLE, COVER

AND STAND

Decorated in the Seuter workshop, probably by Abraham Seuter

The porcelain circa 1720

The mounts and decoration circa 1725-30

The ecuelle height 10.7 cm

The stand diam. 18.4 cm

The stand bearing the incised ‘X’ mark for D. Rehschuh

The silver mounts impressed ‘ES’ for the goldsmith Elias Adam and a pinecone for Augsburg

Painted in tones of grey with red highlights, within blackened silver cartouches. The main scene of the bowl is loosely based on an engraving by H.S. Thomasin. after Antoine Watteau's "Coquettes qui pour voir galans au rendez-vous". The other scenes on the bowl and the lid are presumably adapted from similar sources.

The decoration on this stand and ecuelle are examples of the Watteau-type decoration that Ducret attributed to Abraham Seuter and said of them: ‘In terms of finesse, color combination and painting technique, they surpass anything that has ever appeared in the hausmaler category’. [1]

While being of ‘Watteau type’, the scene of the stand is based on a painting by Nicolas Lancret "Dans cette aimable solitude... Leur discours seroit plus tendre", after an engraving by Charles-Nicolas Cochin II.

Top Coquettes qui pour voir galans au rendez-vous by H. S. Thomasin after Antoine Watteau

The decoration on this ecuelle and stand is very close in style, quality and execution to the decoration of the coffeepot signed by Abraham Seuter and is almost certainly by his hand. [2]

This set looks like it has been designed at Meissen to be mounted and decorated in Augsburg. The form is not one that we have seen elsewhere, and it would not serve its function properly if not mounted with silver handles. This suggests that the porcelain, decoration, and mounts were produced and applied at the same time and that it was produced within the period that Meissen and the Seuter workshop were engaged in a formal relationship with each other. The coffeepot signed by Abraham Seuter was probably decorated and mounted later, as the signatures seem to begin with the end of the formal relationship with Meissen as we know that the Meissen factory disapproved of individuals signing their work. This suggests that this piece was produced towards the end of the period of formal relationship with Meissen around 1725-30.

Provenance

The Ringier Collection, Christie’s, London, 11 December 2007, lot 81

References Ducret 1971 Ducret, Siegfried, Meissner Porzellan bemalt in Augsburg, 1718 bis um 1750, (Klinkhardt & Biermann, Braunschweig, 1971), vol II, ill. 198

[1] See Ducret 1971, vol. II, p. 20.

Top 'Dans cette aimable solitude’.., Nicolas Lancret Fitzwilliam Museum , (No.330)

Bottom A coffeepot with decoration after Johann Elias Ridinger, Signed A.S on the trumpet, and Seuter on the collar of the dog.

MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN,

SUGAR BOX

Probably decorated in the Seuter workshop

The porcelain circa 1720

Decoration circa 1725-35

Width 12.2 cm

Height 9.6 cm

Decorated in iron-red with scenes of wild animals after prints by Johann Elias Ridinger. There are no signed examples of this type of decoration, however given Ridinger’s close family relationship to the Seuter family, it seems likely that these are from the Seuter workshop.[1]

Another factor that would suggest an attribution to the Seuter workshop is that we find this type of decoration on an eagle teapot.

[1] See Ducret 1971, vol I, p. 36.

MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, SC H WARZ L OT PART COFFEE SERVICE

Decorated in the Seuter workshop, probably by Abraham Seuter

The silver mounts with mark of Elias Adam pinecone for Augsburg lustre marks ‘DSB’ to the tea caddy and two of the saucers Circa 1725

The coffee pot height 24.6 cm

The tea caddy height 10.1 cm

The saucers diam. 12.6 cm

Decorated in schwarzlot with red highlights. The pastoral vignettes are set amongst classical ruins. The scenes are in the manner of the prolific Dutch artist Nicolaes Berchem who produced many engravings of this type.

Another very similar service was sold recently in Bonhams, the coffee pot was hallmarked with the Augsburg mark for 1722-26. [1] The decoration is so similar in every detail that one would presume it to be of the same date.

The quality and style of the decoration seems to be very close in quality to the best of the Watteau decoration, and the signed Abraham Seuter coffeepot [2]. Which would suggest that this service is also probably painted by Abraham Seuter.

The same scene was also used on an experimental green monochrome coffeepot in the Gardiner Museum, which is said to have a hallmark for 1739-41. The perspectives are less precise, but the style is similar enough to think that it was also probably painted by Abraham Seuter. This would post-date Johann Paulus’ death, also Bartholomäus would have been 62 at this point, and presumably less active in the decorating workshop.

Two saucers with paper label "Martha Isaacson"

· Martha Isaacson, Seattle The Robert Compton Jones Collection Literature

· Ducret, Siegfried, Meissner Porzellan bemalt in Augsburg, 1718 bis um 1750, (Klinkhardt & Biermann, Braunschweig, 1971), vol. II, for the coffee pot, pp. 100-101 pl. 76 & 77.

Provenance

MEISSEN PORCELAIN AUGUSTUS

REX VASE, CIRCA 1730

Decorated in the Aufenwerth workshop, attributed to Elizabeth Wald

Circa 1750

Height 41.7 cm high

Painted on the front with an image of ‘The Peacock Pheasant from China’, after the engraving from George Edwards’, A Natural history of uncommon birds and of some other rare and undescribed animals (1743). A flowering branch on the reverse.

Top Der chinesische Phasanenpfau, Johann Seligmann’s Sammlung verschiedener ausländischer und seltener Vögel (1749)

The strapwork border patterns around the neck and the base of the vase are painted in the distinctive style of the Aufenwerth workshop and are a close match to examples of their work on both porcelain and Künersberg faience.

Ornithological subjects are not generally associated with the Aufenwerth workshop on porcelain, but there are examples of related ornithological decoration on Künersberg faience vases attributed to the Aufenwerth workshop, that are stylistically similar and also in the manner of George Edwards engravings. [1]

George Edward’s great work was published in French in 1743 and then as Johann Seligmann’s Sammlung verschiedener ausländischer und seltener Vögel in Nuremberg in 1749 and is considered to have been one of the most influential works on ornithology. It is likely that the images would have been available in Augsburg.

Ornithological decoration is also found on Meissen porcelain around this time, for example on the Northumberland service and also on some AR vases.[2] Those however are derived from A natural history of birds by Eleazar and Elizabeth Albin (1738), a copy of which was acquired by the Meissen factory in 1745. While the source is different, it shows that ornithological decoration was in favour at the time. [3]

[1] For a longer article on this type of Kunerberg decoration, see Vogt 2020 [2] See the example in the Rijksmuseum, inv. BK-17399 (den Blaauwen 2000, no. 226) and its counterpart sold in Sotheby’s London, Auction Catalogue, Robert Von Hirsch Collection,1978, lot 657

[3] See Sotheby’s London Auction Catalogue Robert Von Hirsch Collection – Meissen 1978, lot 657 for a discussion on this type of decoration.

Top Vase border comparison: Top Border pattern from the Hosennestel Service

Bottom Catalogue number 32, Meissen porcelain Augustus Rex vase

Bottom Vase border comparison: Top 'Künersberg vase, from a north German Collection'

Bottom

Catalogue number 32, Meissen porcelain Augustus Rex vase

Decorated in the Aufenwerth workshop, attributed to Elizabeth Wald

Circa 1745-50

Height 16.2 cm

Decorated with chinoiseries after the manner of J. G. Höroldt above gold and silver swags. A small group of Künersberg faience decorated in this style is known, and very similar designs, executed by the Aufenwerth workshop exist on Meissen porcelain. When found on Meissen they are often dated to around 1730-35, however the Künersberg faience factory only started in 1745. While the discrepancy in date is possible, it is also possible that the Meissen examples were decorated slightly later than sometimes thought.

This style of decoration tends to be attributed to Anna Elizabeth Wald as suggested by Ducret in Keramos.[1] Ducret bases this on a stylistic comparison to a set of Meissen teabowls and saucers which bear an ‘EW’ monogram. Anna Elizabeth Wald also signed two Künersberg faience tankards with her full name and dated them 1748. These two tankards are entirely different stylistically from any of the work attributed to her on Meissen. [2] T. H. Clarke published a gilded Meissen teapot[3], that bears the initials SH for Sabina Hosennestel

(the married name of Sabina Aufenwerth), which makes a compelling stylistic comparison to the decoration on this Künersberg example.

It is no surprise that confusion between the sisters would occur. Although there are signed pieces by each artist, it is difficult to distinguish confidently between the work of Sabina and Anna Elizabeth Aufenwerth. They were both daughters of the goldsmith Johann Aufenwerth who taught them the art of decorating on Meissen porcelain. They shared a workshop on Schongauergasse in Augsburg and it is clear they had overlapping decorative styles. [4]

Provenance Robert G. Vater Collection

[1] See Ducret 1970.

[2] See Ducret 1971, vol. II, pp. 104-105, pl. 84-86.

[3] See Clarke 1985.

[4] See Langeloh 2010 for a discussion on the attribution of these pieces.

Top Meissen porcelain, Aufenwerth workshop Sold at Koller Auction, June 2020

S ECTION SEVEN

OT HE R

GERMAN HAUSMALER

CATALOGUE ENTRIES 34 – 42

OTHER GERMAN HAUSMALER

Across Germany other hausmaler were producing work on Meissen and other porcelain, with workshops known to have been operating in Dresden, Bayreuth, Pressnitz and Vienna. Numerous itinerant artists with enamelling skills such as Adam Friedrich von Löwenfinck were also operating independently.

In the early years of the Meissen factory, white Böttger porcelain was available for sale at the Leipzig fairs and through Augsburg dealers. With the rise of the Höroldt workshop around 1728, there seem to have been efforts made to control access to the new forms of high-quality feldspathic porcelain they were then producing. Johann Georg Keyssler, who was in Dresden on 23 October 1730, wrote:

‘The very fine and valuable porcelain is prepared with much secrecy in the castle at Meissen. For a year and a half it has been forbidden to sell all white porcelain, instead they make the profit that foreign artists made by working on it in the country here itself…’ [1]

Consequently, a disproportionate amount of hausmaler decoration is found on early Böttger porcelain. With only a small number of signed pieces at our disposal, and only a few archival clues to work from, it is often hard to attribute decoration to a particular hand, place or time. Here we have a few of uncertain origin, followed by others about which we can be more confident.

Henry Manners

A MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, SAUCER

Unidentified hausmaler

Indistinct incised ‘X’ in the footrim, perhaps for the dreher Rehschuh

Circa 1720 -1730

Diam. 12.3 cm

Decorated on a gold ground with three schwarzlot panels of figures. This piece does not relate to any identifiable group or workshop, other pieces of what was presumably once a tea service are known. The style of decoration seems to be reasonably early and could perhaps have been applied in Dresden where we know a lot of porcelain was gilded.

Provenance

‘A Porcelain Reference Collection, 18th century Saucers from the Andreina Torre Collection’, Sale catalogue: Sotheby’s, London 18 November 1996, lot 102

A MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, SAUCER

Unidentified hausmaler

Circa 1720-1730

Diam. 13.0 cm

The reverse applied with three raised flowering branches. Finely painted with a huntsman shooting a fox in a distinctive and delicately shaded palette. The garland swags in the border are quite similar to some pieces decorated by the Metzsch workshop, but the colour palette of the central scene with its strong pink is unlike most other pieces associated with Bayreuth. The baroque strapwork suggests a fairly early date and the decoration is reminiscent of goldsmiths work on enamel watch cases. A closely related piece is in the Gardiner Museum Toronto (Object number: G83.1.825.1-2).

Provenance

· ‘A Porcelain Reference Collection, 18th century Saucers from the Andreina Torre Collection’, Sale catalogue: Sotheby’s, London 18 November 1996, lot 231

A MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, GOLD DECORATED TEABOWL AND SAUCER

Unidentified Saxon hausmaler

Incised line to inside of footrim

Circa 1730

The saucer diam. 12.9 cm

The saucer decorated with an owl and four bands of ornament with further sprays on the reverse. The teabowl with a dog and bear on the outside, and animals in chase on the inside of the rim.

This distinctive decoration only occurs on early Meissen, Böttger porcelain, and Saxon glass. The repeating elements show that it is a die-stamped or paillon technique. The foil appears thinner than on the French groups that we illustrate in section nine and has a rather crumbly texture; there are problems with the adhesion over the yellow brown flux. There are dots similar to those on the piqué d’or group, which were presumably applied with gold in powder form, but they usually have a small dimple in the centre, probably caused as the substance in which the gold is suspended evaporates.

This type of decoration has often been wrongly attributed to the arcanist and decorator Christoph Conrad Hunger but there is no basis for this. Although we can be reasonably sure that it was done in Saxony, it can be shown that Hunger was definitely not responsible because exactly the same decoration occurs on glass including an example in the British Museum [1886,1113.1] decorated with the cypher of Frederick Augustus III which must postdate his accession to the Electorate of Saxony in 1733 and Hunger is known to have left Dresden by 1729. [1] [2]

[1] For a further discussion of this see Manners 2011, pp. 35 – 40.

[2] The historic attribution to Carl Conrad Hunger was questioned as early as 1979 in the Zyz collection by Rainer Ruckert, Ruckert 1979, p. 531, catalogue no 359.

THE METZSCH WORKSHOP AND OTHER BAYREUTH HAUSMALER

Bayreuth was a major centre of hausmaler decoration from 1735. There are a number of artists that we know to have been working in here, however the main name we think of, is Johann Friederich Metzsch, active in Bayreuth between 1735 and 51. There are a handful of signed pieces by him, with his name in full and stating that they were made in Bayreuth. These pieces are all decorated with continuous scenes and display a particularly accomplished understanding of enamels [1] .

Other pieces are known with JFM, JM and M monograms that are also likely to be by Metzsch which have more ornament and expand the range of styles attributable to him and his workshop. Metzsch first appears in 1731 in Dresden announcing that he could ‘paint with gold and all the colours’ but did not want to join the Meissen factory. He wanted to buy white porcelain at a ‘um billigsmassigen preis’ (cheaply) but was dismissed with only one tea service and the rebuke that ‘there are too many bunglers about’. [2]

It seems that in the wake of this experience he persuaded some Meissen workmen to leave the factory and join him to attempt to make porcelain in Bayreuth. Of these conspirators, three sons of J. G. Melhorn, a flower painter named Marcus

Thausend and others were apprehended and imprisoned. Only one, Adam Friedrich von Löwenfinck, escaped. [3]

By 1735 Metzsch had set up a workshop in Bayreuth and employed several painters. This is reflected in the number of hands that we see painting in his distinctive style. George Savage speculates that he may have employed some of the other known painters in Bayreuth – Joseph Phillip Danhoffer, Johann Christoph Jucht, possibly Ferdinand Teutscher of Vienna. [4] It is also possible that they worked separately as independent artists. One piece that has been the source of confusion is a Chinese porcelain bowl from the Darmstaedter collection [6] which despite being painted in the style of Metzsch is inscribed ‘de Dreschell 1744’. W. B. Honey believed that this inscription

referred not to the painter but to the ownership’, which seems likely to be the case. [7]

Signed pieces by Metzsch date between 1744 and 1748. In 1751 Metzsch went to work in Furstenberg, apparently frustrated with his limited supply of porcelain to decorate.

[1] See Honey 1954, pp. 154-157 for a discussion of Metzsch and his style.

[2] Cited by Savage 1958, p. 209.

[3] See Savage 1958, p. 209.

[4] See Savage 1958, p. 209.

[5] Aileen Dawson writes that this beaker is painted with ‘deeply-felt pathos hardly ever found on porcelain’. Dawson, Documentary Continental Ceramics from the British Museum, p. 32 catalogue no. 20.

[6] Darmstaedter 1925, lot 426.

[7] See Honey 1954, p. 157.

Opposite Signed ‘F M / Bäyreuth / 1744’ in gold, Victoria & Albert Museum (C.98-1930)

Top The Gardiner Museum, monogram of Johann Friedrich Metzsch (G83.1.769.1-2)

Bottom left British Museum (Franks.147), signed ‘Bayreuth, Fec: Jucht’ [5]

Bottom right Signed ‘Metzsch/ 1748/ Bayr.’, British Museum, (Franks.146)

TWO EARLY MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, BEAKERS

Decoration attributed to Johann Friedrich Metzsch in Bayreuth

The porcelain 1710-15, the decoration circa 1735-51

Height 6.7 cm

One painted with a continuous scene of Neptune on a chariot drawn by hippocampi, the other with Europa and the Bull, the interior rims with wide gilt borders. The image of Neptune with a reclining putto on the reverse is copied directly from an engraving by Johannus Andreas Thelot published in Christian Hofmann von Hofmannswaldau’s book Das Reisender Cupido (published in Augsburg by F. Leopold 1703); the scene of Europa and the Bull probably derives from an engraving by Hendrick Goltzius.

The rich colour palette, continuous landscape and the garland swags scenes are exceptionally well painted. Although the decoration does not fall easily into any of the known groups of hausmalerei, the garland around the bull’s neck is close to those of the Metzsch workshop in Bayreuth and the inner gilt border has similarities to a saucer in the Gardiner Museum, Toronto, signed with the monogram of Metzsch (illustrated earlier).

Despite being decorated after 1735, the form of these beakers, on high stepped feet, are one of the earliest produced at Meissen and are close to Böttger stoneware models.

Provenance

The Neptune beaker sold at Sotheby's London, 23 June 1993, lot 135;

· The Europa and the Bull beaker sold at Phillips London, 1 December 1993, lot 62

Sir Jeffrey Tate and Klaus Kuhlemann, Bonhams, London, 6 December 2018, lot 236

Engraving by Johann Andreas Thelot (1703)

A MEISSEN SAUCER

Painted by Johann Friederich Metzsch Bayreuth

Underglaze blue crossed swords mark, impressed 63

Cursive ‘M’ mark for J. F. Metzsch

Circa 1740

Diam. 13.4 cm

Decorated with a central floral spray, within a border of ‘batwing’ ornament. The strong palette and ‘batwing’ designs is very characteristic of the Metzsch workshop.

The cursive ‘M’ mark was probably originally in gold which has been erased, it is clearly visible in glancing light.

The impressed number or pressnumer indicates that the porcelain was made after 1738.

Provenance

‘A Porcelain Reference Collection, 18th century Saucers from the Andreina Torre Collection’, Sale catalogue: Sotheby’s, London 18 November 1996, lot 227

A MEISSEN SAUCER

Probably decorated in Bayreuth, perhaps workshop of Johann Friedrich Metzsch

Underglaze blue crossed swords mark, impressed 17

The porcelain circa 1740, the decoration circa 1740-45 Diam. 12.6 cm

Decorated with an allegory of love below the motto ‘Ame de me Ame’, with cupid seated before a fire within an elaborate cartouche. The colour and design of the cartouche are very much in the style we associate with Bayreuth of the period. We cannot however be confident that it is from the Metzsch workshop on the basis of known signed pieces.

The impressed number or pressnumer indicates that the porcelain was made after 1738.

Provenance

‘A Porcelain Reference Collection, 18th century Saucers from the Andreina Torre Collection’, Sale catalogue: Sotheby’s, London 18 November 1996, lot 225

A WATERCOLOUR DESIGN FOR PORCELAIN

Decorated by an unknown artist, probably Bayreuth

Dated 1748

The glass 17.5 x 10 cm

The ebonized fruitwood and gilded frame 22.5 x 15 cm

A watercolour design for an ornamental cartouche with the motto ‘Fraus Virtute Perit’ in the style found on Bayreuth porcelain. The date is within the period when the Metzsch workshop was operating, but we have not been able to interpret the rest of the inscription.

Provenance

· Charles Plante Fine Arts

ADAM FRIEDRICH VON LÖWENFINCK:

THE ITINERANT WORKER

One of the most original and exuberant painters of 18th century German ceramics, Adam Friedrich von Löwenfinck escaped from the clutches of Meissen and went on to work at Höchst, Ansbach, Bayreuth, Fulda and Potsdam. Although he failed in his plan to make porcelain, he left a legacy of spectacular faience.

ATTRIBUTED TO ADAM FRIEDRICH VON LÖWENFINCK

A Bayreuth faience sweetmeat tray supported by Harlequin 1736-37

Height 16.8 cm

B.K mark in blue for Period Knöller, 1728-1744

Modelled as Harlequin from the Commedia dell’arte, carrying a tray aloft standing on a stepped foot. Harlequin is decorated in characteristic chequered outfit with a gilded buckle. The inside of the tray is painted with a spray of flowers and insects within a band of green with a repeated floral motif. This is the only instance we know of von Löwenfinck decorating a figure. The decoration in the well of the tray and the floral sprays throughout the figure is typical of his hand and found on some of the rare signed pieces of Fulda faience such as the example right from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and another in a private collection published by P. Ducret. [1] They often have a coloured band and sketchy flower sprays with a distinctive colour palette incorporating heavy black leaves. [see right]

Löwenfinck worked briefly in Bayreuth in 1736 – 37. [2]

[1] P. Ducret 1983, pp. 122-123, figs. 7 to 10.

[2] For further reading on the work and life of Adam Friedrich von Löwenfinck, see Pietsch 2014.

Right Metropolitan Museum of Art, signed ‘de Löwenfinken pinxit’ (50.211.191)

F. MAYER AND FRANZ FERDINAND MAYER OF PRESSNITZ

The Mayers, a father and son working in Pressnitz Bohemia, ran one of the last and most prolific of the major haumalerei workshops. [1]

There is a distinctive body of work in their style and palette, often with particularly elaborate gilt borders, encompassing different qualities and hands suggesting a large workshop. The few known signed pieces are by the Mayers themselves, the earliest dated piece, being signed by the father F. Mayer in 1747. F. Mayer, died in 1751 at which point his son, Franz Ferdinand Mayer took over. [3] The signed and dated pieces range up to 1766. A contemporary record notes that ‘the painter Mayer’s house was burned down along with three of his neighbours after being struck by lightning on 27 June 1776. [4] It is probable that the workshop ended with this incident if it had not already. There are no dated pieces after this point.

[1] See Honey 1954, p. 157.

[2] Illustrated in Pazaurek, pl. 29.

[3] For a good summary of the Mayers and other hausmaler see Kuhn 2021.

[4] Pazaurek 1925, vol 1 pp. 318-319.

Opposite Signed by F. Mayer, the father, and dated 1747 [2]

A MEISSEN PORCELAIN PLAQUE, DECORATED BY FRANZ FERDINAND MAYER

Meissen porcelain, decorated in 1756 Inscribed in iron-red to the reverse; ‘franciscus ferdinando Maÿer/oel u: Potzlin Mahler in/ Presnitz verfertiget. Ano. 1756.’, 13.5 cm square

Depicting the Flagellation of Christ, following an engraving after Giuseppe Cesari d'Arpino within an uncharacteristically simple gilt border. This plaque is painted with exceptional quality and care. Interestingly Franz Ferdinand describes himself here in his signature as a painter in oil and porcelain, emphasising his status as an artist.

The only other known square plaque by Franz Ferdinand Mayer is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, painted with portraits of the von Kayser family of Pressnitz.

Provenance

Property of An Important European Collection, Sotheby’s, 13 November 2020, lot 68

Top left

The Flagellation of Christ Engraved by Aegidius Sadeler II after Giuseppe Cesari d'Arpino, 1593

Top right Inscribed to the reverse: ‘Francisicus Ferdi: Mayer. Pinxit d. 15 Juny.1752’ (Victoria & Albert Museum, C.117-1937)

S ECTION EIGHT

NETHERLANDS T HE

CATALOGUE ENTRIES 43 – 50

THE NETHERLANDS

The first experiments with over-glaze enamels began in Holland in the 1680s on Delftware under the potter Rochus Hoppesteyn. These rare pieces use a restricted palette to create a sumptuous effect but, with their multiple firings, proved too expensive to be successful. We start this section with an intriguing vase closely related to this group probably painted by Jeremias Godtling.

Top Arita porcelain, decorated in The Netherlands circa 1712 Victoria and Albert museum. Gilbert Loan 868-2008

More commercially viable was enamelling on Asian and Meissen porcelain which led to the largest and most successful industry of independent enamellers in Europe. The Dutch had the advantage of having the first pick of the scarce white Asian porcelain through their dominant East India Company and their highly developed trading networks.

An early stimulus to this industry was the huge appetite in France and Germany in the 1720s for Japanese Kakiemon porcelains which were busily being amassed by voracious collectors such as Augustus the Strong in Saxony and the prince de Condé in France. Since the Kakiemon kilns themselves had ceased to produce these fine wares by around 1700, these collectors could only find a dwindling supply on the secondhand market leading to dramatic price rises.[1] The Dutch found that they could match the Kakiemon palette of blue, turquoise, yellow and iron-red almost perfectly and the simple bold designs could be copied precisely on blank Japanese and Chinese porcelain.

One of the earliest examples of Dutch Kakiemon style decoration is the Arita flask from the Gilbert collection, with Paris silver mounts dateable to around 1712. This is perhaps the sort of wares sold by ‘Gerrit van de Kaade’ in the shop that he is reported to have opened in Delft in 1705 specialising in exotic porcelain decorated in Holland. The Dutch origin is betrayed by the rather stiff and angular rendering of the design.

THE AFFAIR OF RUDOLPHE

The growing passion for Kakiemon porcelains is demonstrated by the extraordinary story of the French merchant Rudolphe Lemaire. We know this story in great detail because of the extensive records which still survive of the court case in 1731 for his prosecution in Dresden for fraudulent activity. Lemaire himself states that when he was in Holland, in the mid-1720s, he was impressed by the ability of the Dutch enamellers in copying Japanese porcelain and that he had ordered white, undecorated Meissen porcelain to be sent to Holland for enamelling. Evidently Lemaire was passing this off in Paris as genuine Japanese Kakiemon. The flask, teapot, and beakers and saucer [See catalogue numbers 44-47] belong to this group.

Lemaire subsequently decided to see if he could commission Meissen itself to make and enamel copies of Kakiemon for the French market thereby saving him the trouble of shipping it all to Holland to be decorated. The Saxon minister Carl Heinrich Graf von Hoym (1694-1736), who had become director of the Meissen factory in June 1729, helped Lemaire to obtain an exclusive contract with the factory to get unmarked porcelain for this project. Hoym also arranged for over 200 pieces of Japanese porcelain to be borrowed by Meissen from the royal collection in the Japanese Palace in Dresden to serve as models. When Augustus the Strong realised the fraudulent nature of this enterprise, he decreed that all pieces of Meissen should be marked with the crossed swords. However, Hoym and Lemaire arranged for the marks to be applied over the glaze from where they could be easily removed. This deceit led to their prosecution. [2]

OTHER DUTCH DECORATION

We have not attempted to cover the vast range of Dutch decoration in this catalogue, but just show a few further unusual examples of some types. For a detailed survey of the subject see Helen Espir’s, European Decoration on Oriental Porcelain: 1700-1830, (Jorge Welsh Books, 2005).

Errol Manners

[1] See Manners 2018 for an overview of the phenomenon. [2] For a detailed discussion see: ’Die Hoym-LemaireAffäre (1728-1731): Meissener Kopien ostasiatischer Originale für den Pariser Händler Rodolphe Lemaire und den sächsischen Minister Graf von Hoym’, Weber 2013, vol. II. p. 33-59.

A ‘MIXED TECHNIQUE’ PILGRIM BOTTLE

Delft or The Hague

Dated twice 168?

MES monogram

Painting attributed to Jeremias Godtling

Height 41.4 cm

Decorated with a scene from the Romance of the Western Chamber, the Chinese classic set in the Tang Dynasty, where Zhang Sheng asks the monk, Hui Ming, to deliver a letter. The other side with figures of an emperor, attendants and musicians. These images would have been taken from popular Chinese woodblock prints that are known to have been imported in Holland but rarely survive.

The decoration is very similar to the ‘mixed-technique’ wares produced at the Het Moriaanshooft under the management of Jannetge, the widow of Jacob Wemmersz Hoppesteyn (1627-1671), and her son Rochus Hoppesteyn except that the blue painting is applied with bold black outlines and there is no grand feu green, brown or manganese, just the addition of a strong iron-red and gilding applied in a second or petit feu firing.

If the date can be read as 1688 it is possible that this is one of the pieces made or decorated by Jeremias Godtling (1642-1703) and Willem van der Lith in The Hague. Godtling and van der Lith, two potters from Delft, made an application at The Hague Record Office in 1688, to build a kiln as they had ‘invented the art of making porcelains with gold, red and other colours’. The factory closed in 1701, leaving no trace of production.[1] Rochus Hoppesteyn is recorded as having placed orders with this short-lived factory, which specialised in red and gold decoration.[2]

It is probable that they did make some pottery in The Hague since they had been given land from which to take the clay, but the rich and dense milky white glaze is of such high quality and whiteness that it is more likely to be a product of the Het

Moriaanshooft factory and decorated by Jeremias Godtling.[3]

The only other vase of this period decorated with Chinese figures with just the addition of petit feu red and gold is in the vase in the Berlin Kunstgewerbemuseum marked RIHS for Rochus Hoppesteyn.

The ‘MES’ monogram could be for one of the Mesch family. Generations of this family were involved in potteries. Joris Mesch, for instance, started the Het Fortuyn in 1661 and his widow sold it in 1691. [4]

[1] Ressing-Wolfert 2001, pp. 127-133.

[2] See Aken-Fehmers et al. 1999, pp. 202-203.

[3] I am grateful to Jacobien Ressing for her views on this.

[4] De Jonge 1947 illustrates a similar monogram on page 372 wrongly attributing it to Het Hart pottery, but it must be for Het Fortuyn. I am grateful to Jan Daniel van Dam for this reference.

Top Berlin Kunstgewerbemuseum (Staatliche Museen, inv. 09.20) marked RIHS for Rochus Hoppesteyn

A MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, FLASK

Decorated in Holland

The porcelain circa 1715-20

The decoration circa 1720-25

Height 19.1 cm

The form is a close copy of a Japanese Arita flask and was probably modelled on an example in the Japanese Palace of Augustus the Strong in Dresden, but being on early Böttger porcelain it predates the pieces ordered through Graf Hoym from Meissen in 1729.

The Dutch enameller has matched the Kakiemon palette well but has added a rose-pink which is not found on Japanese originals, but it could well have duped an unwary buyer in Paris.

A MEISSEN, BÖTTGER PORCELAIN, TEAPOT

Decorated in Holland

The porcelain circa 1715

The decoration circa 1720-25

Width 16.4 cm

Height 9.8 cm

The form of this teapot, with its baroque design of raised stiff leaves owes nothing to Japan, but is a model of Johann Jakob Irminger, the Dresden court silversmith, who was employed at Meissen since 1710 to create new designs (So die inventions und neuen Desseins besorget).

With such an obviously European form this was presumably not intended to dupe a buyer into thinking it was Japanese, but was simply decorated in the taste that was then so fashionable.

TWO MEISSEN, TWO-HANDLED BEAKERS AND SAUCERS

Böttger porcelain circa 1715, Decorated in Holland circa 1720-25

One saucer with incised mark inside the footrim

The beakers height 7.5 & 7.7 cm

The saucers diam. 12.4 cm

The shape of these beakers with their angular handles and less tapering form predates the two-handled beakers of the 1720s. These were probably old redundant stock from Meissen, perhaps acquired but Rudolphe Lemaire and brought to Holland for enamelling.

Provenance

Henri Delattre Collection (according to paper label)

A DUTCH-DECORATED ‘FINE LINE’ BOWL

The porcelain, Chinese or perhaps Japanese, 1700-20 The decoration, The Netherlands circa 1724

Diam. 12.2 cm

Height 6.3 cm

Finely decorated on the exterior with a continuous scene of a red-coated shepherd playing a pipe with goats in a landscape with a further figure at a fountain beside a ruined castle or church. The interior with a detail of the scene within a double red circle with a border of bouquets of flowers and insects in flight.

Held in a glancing light the ghost impressions of simple flower heads are visible on the surface of the porcelain. The sparse original Chinese or Japanese decoration on the bowl has been removed by careful abrasion to provide the blank canvas that the painter required. The porcelain is certainly East Asian but it is difficult to be sure if it is Chinese or Japanese.

The work of this anonymous Dutch artist was first discussed in a paper that I wrote entitled ‘Dutch ‘Fine-Line’ and German Schwarzlot Decoration’ published in the Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 65, 2000-2001, pp. 135-142, to coincide with the exhibition held at the British Museum on the subject of Oriental porcelain decorated in Europe.

The anonymous ‘Fine-Line’ painter is by far the most accomplished decorator of porcelain working in The Netherlands with a uniquely inventive and draughtsman-like style.

Examples of the work of this rare artist can be found in various Dutch museums and a notable group in the Porzellansammlung in the Zwinger in Dresden where they have been from the early 18th century.

We are able show that this small group was decorated in Holland around 1724 because of a Dehua ewer decorated by the same hand for the marriage in that year of William Butler and Maria Leeser in Amsterdam.[1]

Provenance

Soame Jenyns Collection

Sotheby’s, London, 8 November 2018, lot 33 (part)

Anthony du Boulay Collection

[1] Manners 2001 p. 139, fig 3. This paper is available on our website. For a further discussion see Espir 2005, pp. 115-127.

Top Ewer with the arms of William Butler and Maria Leeser Ex. Bernard Watney collection

A CHINESE PLATE

Decorated in Holland

Perhaps painted by Adriaan van Rijsselbergh

Circa 1720-1725

Diam. 21.0 cm

Decorated with Leda and the Swan after one for the numerous engravings of this popular Ovidian subject, within a border of alternating scallops and flowerheads.

This hand using the same palette is also found on some of the most ambitious Delft petit feu decorated wares such as a charger in the Rijksmuseum painted with Europa and the Bull which is attributed De Grieksche A factory. The painting is of exceptionally high quality and has been tentatively attributed to Adriaan van Rijsselbergh, the most important painter at the factory. Van Rijsselbergh was mentioned in a notarial deed when De Grieksche A factory was sold in 1722 and shortly afterwards when no longer contractually bound he set up in business for himself.[1]

Top Charger with the Rape of Europa after Hendrik Goltzius Attributed to De Grieksche A factory 1715-1722 Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (BKNM-12400-286)

A CHINESE CUP DECORATED IN HOLLAND

Crossed swords mark in blue enamel

Circa 1740

Height 6.2 cm

This cup copies the decoration of two cartouches of Meissen harbour scenes, or Kauffahrtei, of the 1730s. The same high quality of painting and the same flower sprays can be found on Delft doré wares such as those of the Delft factory of De 3 Vergulde Astonne under the management of Zacharis Dextra. [1]

Provenance

Bernard Watney Collection

S ECTION NINE

FRENCH GOLD DECORATION

CATALOGUE ENTRIES 51 – 54

FRENCH GOLD DECORATION

In spite of having such an active ceramic industry, there was almost no outside or independent enamel decoration of porcelain in France, but there were some rare groups of gold decoration. There were two techniques used for the application of gold to porcelains in France in the early eighteenth century.

One was to apply gold in ground or powder form bound in a medium suitable for painting, which we can call the ‘piquée d’or’ group. The other technique was to apply elements of gold foil punched with designs in die stamps or paillons, the ‘paillon’ group. In both methods the gold was combined with a fusible glassy flux to fix it to the porcelain.

THE ‘PIQUÉE D’OR’ GROUP

The first of the groups belongs to the conventional gilding type and occurs mostly on Chinese Dehua or blanc de chine porcelain and occasionally on that of Jingdezhen, Japanese and Saint- Cloud but apparently not on Meissen or enamel. It forms an easily recognisable and cohesive group characterised by densely applied gold dots and simple chinoiseries. The application of painted gold is quite thick and allows for further fine tooling or ciselure. Pieces of this group are often mounted in gold or silver gilt.

Wares of this type can be identified in the inventory drawn up following the death of the Regent, Philippe II, duc d’Orléans who died on 2 December 1723.[1] In four instances they are described as piquée d’or and are amongst the most highly valued pieces listed.

The Regent’s néscessaire survives in the Louvre (see opposite) and is described in the inventory in considerable detail:

2060 Un petit nécessaire en bois de violette garni de ses portans de métal doré, les entrées de serrure d’or, dans lequel est une boette d’or à thé, une thayère, une boette à sucre de porcelaine ancienne, un flacon de crystal de roche, le tout garni d’or, deux tasses et leurs soucoupes de porcelaine, deux cuillières de vermeil, dans le tiroir de dessous, un plateau vernis de Japon, 400 livres.

The description is precise down to the gold lock plates and brass carrying handles on the box, the solid gold tea canister and the rock crystal flask. The Japanese lacquer tray is now missing.[2] Another very similar néscessaire is described in a letter written by the dowager duchesse d’ Orleans, Liselotte von der Pfalz, the Regent’s mother, in March 1718.[3]

This small but coherent group of ‘piqué d’or’ pieces have décharge marks that span the years 1717 to 1726. The small number of pieces in this group, (probably less than twenty) suggests that they cannot have been made over an extended period. It can be assumed that the group was produced by a Paris jeweller or marchand mercier for just a few years either side of 1720.

DIE-STAMP OR ‘PAILLON’ GROUP

The second group or groups are those that use gold foil paillons or die-stamped appliqués, and this is rather more complicated. Paillon-decorated wares are found on Saint-Cloud, Meissen and Asian porcelains as well as on enamels on copper. The communauté des paillonneurs, of Paris, which was later amalgamated into the goldsmiths’ guild in 1777, supplied die-stamped paillons to enamellers and makers of clock cases and dials. These were strips of gold foil punched into metal dies and the resulting decorative elements were applied and fired onto the porcelain over a suitable flux. The gold paillons are often quite substantial with considerable relief decoration in the thickness of the gold itself; alternatively, a thin foil was pressed into the die, and it was backed with a vitrifiable medium or enamel. In these cases one can frequently see the white backing enamel in areas where the gold has been rubbed, such as on the bottom of boxes. These pieces often have Paris hallmarks which date to just a little later than the ‘piquée d’or’ group, mostly from the mid 1720s and into the 1730s. Some are also enamelled in green over the paillons, but very rarely in any other colours, we have one beaker which is the most richly enamelled of the group.

Errol Manners

For a detailed study of this subject, see: Errol Manners, Gold Decoration on French, German and Oriental Porcelain in the early eighteenth century, Journal of The French Porcelain Society, vol. IV, 2011

This is available on our website, and we would be happy to forward a PDF file of it.

A GOLD-MOUNTED PI QUÉE D’OR CHINESE, BLANC DE CHINE, BEAKER AND SAINT-CLOUD PORCELAIN SAUCER

Circa 1720

Each gold mount with the fleur de lys poinçon marks used from 1 October 1717 to 15 February 1722

The beaker height 7.0 cm

The saucer diam. 13.3 cm

Whilst Dehua, blanc de chine, beakers were plentiful, Dehua saucers were exceedingly rare, and it was therefore necessary to match them, in this case, with a French Saint-Cloud saucer. A piquée d’or beaker in the British Museum is matched with a Japanese, Arita, saucer.[1]

A similar piece can be identified in the inventory of the Regent, Phillippe II, Duc d’Orléans in the Gardemeuble where it is listed as:

3552 Un gobelet et une soucoupe de porcelain blanche en relief garnis et piquez d’or, 100.[2]

The term en relief refers to the raised prunus design often found on blanc de chine. It is given the price of 100 livre which is very high for a small item.

Another beaker and saucer ‘en porcelaine blanche piquée et garnie d’or’ are in the inventory of the second wife of the Prince de Bourbon Condé, Princesse Caroline de Hesse Rhinefelds, of 28 June 1741. Perhaps only about twenty examples of this group exist and where their provenance is known it leads back to a small royal coterie. [3]

[1] British Museum 1931 5 – 13; Manners 2011, p. 3, fig 3. [2] Whitehead 2003, p. 44.

See Nelson and Impey 1994.

A SAINT-CLOUD ORMOLU-MOUNTED TOBACCO JAR AND COVER

With gold paillon decoration

Circa 1730

Height 13.8 cm

Applied with die-stamped gold ornaments of military trophies, classical landscape vignettes, children, birds and flowers. The gilt metal mounts are finely tooled with scrolls and birds. This along with the two other known examples of the form, are the most substantial and richly decorated pieces in this rare technique.[1]

· With Georges Lévy-Lacaze, Paris (applied paper label); Private Collection, France;

· Acquired in 2003 from Manuela Finaz de Villaine, Paris

The British American Tobacco Collection of Tobacco Containers and Accessories, Bonhams 6 December 2023, lot 34

Provenance

[1] Manners 2011. Fig. 11 & 12.

[2] Alfassa & Guerin 1931, pl. 18 when it was in the collection of Mme Thalman.

Left

From the collection of Mme Thalman, published in Alfassa and Guerin in 1931

Present whereabouts unknown [2]

Right The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

A GOLD-MOUNTED AND ENAMEL DECORATED BEAKER

The porcelain Chinese, Jingdezhen

Circa 1725 - 30

Diam. 7.2

Height 7.1 cm

A refinement beyond the use of gold paillons is the addition of enamels. This beaker with its four elaborate scenes of actors and monkeys amongst trees and buildings, has enamels in red, green, blue and black and is the most richly decorated piece that we know. It is further enhanced with a finely chased gold mount to the rim and the interior is lined with a thick gold foil.

· Khalil Rizk Collection, The Chinese Porcelain Company of New York Literature

· Helen Espir, European Decoration on Oriental Porcelain: 1700-1830, (2005), p. 148, fig 48

· Errol Manners, ‘Gold Decoration on French, German, and Oriental Porcelain in the Early Eighteenth Century’, Journal of the French Porcelain Society, vol. IV, 2011, p. 35, fig. 15

Provenance

A GOLD-MOUNTED CHINESE BOWL AND COVER

With gold paillon decoration

Indistinct Paris poinçon perhaps for 1722 – 27

Under-glaze blue ‘Fu’ mark to the bowl

Circa 1725

Diam. 9.3 cm

Height 7.6 cm

This bowl has unusually thick gold paillons characteristic of this rare sub-group. The paillons of squirrels, an owl and other birds are motifs that do not seem to appear on other Paris pieces. The decorator combined a Chinese, blanc de chine porcelain cover with a bowl, with an underglaze blue ‘Fu’ mark, from another minor Fujian kiln. Varied forms in completely white Asian porcelain were hard to find, this combination demonstrates the ingenuity of the workshop.

Provenance

Anthony du Boulay Collection Literature

· Errol Manners, ‘Gold Decoration on French, German, and Oriental Porcelain in the Early Eighteenth Century’, Journal of the French Porcelain Society, vol. IV, 2011, p. 40, fig. 23

S ECTION TEN

ENGLAND

CATALOGUE ENTRIES 55 – 65

ENGLAND

The work of London decorators, particularly that of the James Giles workshop in the second half of the 18th century has long been recognised. [1] However, the earlier enamellers of porcelain had been almost completely overlooked until I delivered a paper to the English Ceramic Circle in October 2003 on ‘The English Decoration of Oriental Porcelain. Some overlooked groups 1700 -1750’.

[2] Shortly after this Roger Massey published a survey, ‘Independent china painters in 18th century London’, of the documentary evidence for these early independent decorators.

[3] Helen Espir summarised and extended this in her European Decoration on Oriental Porcelain: 1700-1830, of 2005. The following survey does not attempt to be comprehensive, we show none of the classic work of James Giles for instance, but touches on some key areas.

In the very earliest days of the London porcelain factories of Bow (and its precursor the A-Mark group), Limehouse and Chelsea in the 1740s, in-house decorating workshops probably did not exist. [4] White porcelain might have been sent out to those artists who were already enamelling Chinese porcelain, or an enameller could have been brought in on a piece-work basis. We know a little about the role of the ‘chinamen’ such

as William Duesbury in acting as intermediaries between the manufacturers and the decorators from his surviving account book of 1751-1753 in which (amongst much else) he recorded his commissions to decorate pottery and porcelain.

Errol Manners

[1] Two important catalogues by Stephen Hanscombe and exhibitions at Stockspring Antiques in 2005 and 2008 summarised the work of James Giles and his workshop.

[2] For a full account see: Errol Manners, ‘The English Decoration of Oriental Porcelain. Some overlooked groups 1700 –1750’, Transactions of the English Ceramic Circle, vol. 19 part 1, 2005. A pdf can be downloaded from our website.

[3] Massey 2005. Also see Espir 2005 for an extensive survey of English decoration.

[4] For instance the enameller who painted many of the stock patterns of ‘A’ mark porcelain also decorated much of the earliest Chelsea porcelain of the Triangle Period. See Manners 2007.

A CHINESE PORCELAIN

B L AN C D E C H IN E , ‘CAPUCHIN’ CUP

The porcelain, Dehua circa 1690-1710

Decorated in London circa 1700-1720

Height 6.3 cm

This shape of small cup often called a ‘capuchin’ is one of around six uniquely English shapes found in blanc de chine porcelain of Dehua, China, that would have been specially commissioned by the merchants of the English East India Company trading out of Amoy, modern day Xiamen. The name capuchin is said to derive from the rib around the cup which recalls the belt around the waist of a Capuchin friar. The lower band of lappets simulate the raised gadrooned decoration found on the silver originals of this form.

This is an example of the earliest English decoration on white porcelain. the very first London enamelling occurred on brown stonewares of the Elers brothers and Fulham which required opaque colours to stand out against that ground. These related but more translucent colours were then adapted for white porcelain. [1] This early cup displays a palette including a blue that is susceptible to flaking and touches of an aubergine enamel typical of English decoration.

Helen Espir has shown that the Japanese figures in the cartouches are taken from A. Montanus, Atlas Japannensis, probably from the English translation by John Ogilvy of 1670. [2]

Provenance

· E & H Manners

Helen Espir Collection Literature

· Helen Espir, European Decoration on Oriental Porcelain: 1700-1830, (Jorge Welsh Books, 2005), p. 212, fig 11

· Errol Manners, ‘The English Decoration of Oriental Porcelain. Some overlooked groups 1700 –1750’, Transactions of the English Ceramic Circle, vol. 19 part 1, 2005, fig. 21

A CHINESE BLUE AND WHITE BOWL

The porcelain late Kangxi, 1700-1720

Decorated in London in 1722

Dated 1722

Diam. 20.1 cm

Height 8.2 cm

The blue and white bowl has been decorated in London in iron-red, gold and a blue enamel. It is inscribed four times ‘ANNO DOMINI 1722’ on iron-red ribbons, and twice with a coat of arms along with two elaborate ciphers. This bowl seems to be the earliest dated example of London-decorated porcelain.

The blue enamel with a tendency to flake and the bold feathered mantling around the arms are characteristic of a small group of London-decorated wares with British coats of arms dateable to between 1720 to 1735. [1] These link to a wider group of wares that added a further range of enamels over time.

We cannot identify the workshop that decorated this bowl or the related wares, but in 1723, in the probate inventory of Henry Ackerman, a London shopkeeper selling chinaware, we have the first mention of ‘Giles China Painter’ and ‘Campman China painter’. This Giles was the father of the James Giles who came to prominence in the second half of the 18th century. [2]

[1] See Manners 2005, pp. 13 – 15 and Espir 2005, p. 215 – 219 for a discussion of this group. [2] This was discovered by Richard Kilburn in the corporation of London Records Office, Orphans Inventories 3157. See Espir 2005, pp. 213 – 215.

The armorial devices are crudely drawn and surmounted by the coronet of a marquis. It has not been possible to identify them. The two ciphers seem to incorporate ‘M, E and possibly L’, and ‘M and C or D’. The cypher on the vertical inside of the bowl might be MEL for Maitland Earl of Lauderdale. The reversed C’s in the base of the bowl could be reversed D’s for Dysart. In 1722 (the date of the bowl) the Earl of Lauderdale was Charles Maitland (c.1688-1744), 6th Earl of Lauderdale. Ham House was the inheritance of the Duke of Lauderdale’s 2nd wife Elizabeth Murray, Countess of Dysart in her own right. She died in 1698 and Ham House passed to her son by her 1st marriage to Lionel Tollemache, 3rd Earl of Dysart (1648-1727) in whose family the bowl descended. [3]

With its everted rim, the form is known in The Netherlands as a klapmuts due to its resemblance, when inverted, to a popular shape of hat.

Provenance:

By descent in the Dysart and Tollemache families at Ham House to Sir Lyonel Tollemache, 4th Bt. Acquired by Ronald A. Lee, who had befriended Sir Lyonel and preserved many items from the attic A. Lee collection, Sotheby’s, 28 November 2001, lot 106

Literature:

Helen Espir, European Decoration on Oriental Porcelain: 1700-1830, (Jorge Welsh Books, 2005), p. 47, no. 4

Stephen Hanscombe, The Early James Giles and his Contemporary London Decorators, (London: Stockspring Antiques 2008)

[3]

· Errol Manners, ‘The English Decoration of Oriental Porcelain. Some overlooked groups 1700 –1750’, Transactions of the English Ceramic Circle, vol. 19 part 1, 2005, p. 15, fig. 35a & b

I am grateful to Sir Thomas Woodcock for elucidating the line of inheritance.

A CHINESE PORCELAIN BOWL

Decorated in London with Admiral Vernon after the Battle of Portobello

Circa 1740

Diam. 15.5 cm

Height 7.2 cm

Vernon was the toast of the town after his spectacular capture of the fortress of Portobello on November 22nd, 1739, during the War of the Austrian Succession, sometimes known as the War of Jenkins’ Ear. This feat was commemorated in numerous prints and as many as 130 different medals were struck in his honour, more than for any other naval hero of the time.

The Admiral is depicted holding his baton in a pose popularised by the medals and prints, within a border of naval trophies and Red Ensigns. [1] The palette, including the rather muddy blue and a distinctive aubergine, has developed little since the earlier ‘capuchin’ cup [See catalogue number 55]. John Sandon first pointed out the small sunburst with a face on the exterior that seems to almost be a signature of this London Workshop.

Two other bowls of this design in private collections are known to us.

[1]

Literature

· Helen Espir, European Decoration on Oriental Porcelain: 1700-1830, (Jorge Welsh Books, 2005), p. 220, fig. 20

Stephen Hanscombe, The Early James Giles and his Contemporary London Decorators, (London: Stockspring Antiques 2008), p. 49, no. 9

· Errol Manners, ‘The English Decoration of Oriental Porcelain. Some overlooked groups 1700 –1750’, Transactions of the English Ceramic Circle, vol. 19 part 1, 2005, p. 16, fig. 37a & b

A SALT-GLAZED STONEWARE HAWK

Staffordshire pottery, enamelled in London

Circa 1750

Height 19.0 cm

This model copied from a Japanese original is usually left white with a brown base and beak [1]

A few examples are known with these brilliant and bold enamel colours of turquoise, yellow, blue and red. These distinctive enamels applied in washes are characteristic of the London decorators who worked on Chinese porcelain and the very earliest London porcelains such as Limehouse in the mid-1740s. This correlation suggests a slightly earlier date than has been sometimes stated in the literature.

William Duesbury’s ‘London Account Book’ of 1751-53 opens with instructions for colouring a Turk which would be a Staffordshire salt-glazed figure:

‘To Dress the Turk Soldr

Cap the front Blue Black red of it

The Wast Cote and Sleevs Blue

The Sandals Yellow Breeches

Red and belt’

Among the entries in the account book is one for ‘1 pr of Hostrigsis (crossed out) crame candles’ which probably refer to ostrich or crane candlesticks such as the example from the Weldon collection (top) which has similar decoration. [2] William Duesbury was not himself the enameller, but ‘chinaman’ who contracted out the decoration to independent enamellers.

Duesbury’s ‘London Account Book’ [3] has numerous brief entries that could describe birds similar to ours, such as:

1750, May 1: 9 pr Stone Birds

· 1751 July 3rd : 1 pr parrots

1751 November: A pr Staffordshir Lar(ge) Bds (Birds)

1752 Apr. 27: To panting a parrot

· 1752 December 3: pr parrets Donn all over

A very similar example and a closely related pair of coloured hawks were in the Henry Weldon Collection (Grigsby 1990, nos. 172 a & b). A smaller pair are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (35.165.11.12).

Provenance

Private collection

[1] For a related uncoloured model, see a hawk in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (C.40-1979).

[2] Grigsby 1990 no. 170, and 187 for the Turk.

[3] Macalister 1930.

Top left

A salt-glazed crane H. Weldon Collection, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Top right

A salt-glazed figure of a Turk H. Weldon Collection, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

A BOW DOLPHIN SALT OF ‘MUSHROOM-GLAZED’ TYPE

Circa 1746-48

Width 13.6 cm

Height 8.3 cm

No marks

This is perhaps the most ambitious model of the ‘Mushroomgrey’ or Drab-glazed’ class of Bow porcelain which was first systematically grouped together by Hugh Tait in the exhibition of documentary Bow material at the British Museum in 1959. [1] These were then identified as the earliest of Bow porcelains. It is characterised by a distinctive semi-opaque greyish glaze and a muted palette derived from famille-rose porcelains.

The colouring is typical of the decorating styles of the London enamellers who also worked on Limehouse wares and Chinese porcelain around the mid-1740s. It has the unusual feature gilt border decoration.

Perhaps less than forty examples of this class are recorded. It must be based on a silver original and is reminiscent of Chelsea models by Nicholas Sprimont.

Anton Gabszewicz, in a lecture to the English Ceramic Circle, has convincingly argued that this group links the porcelains of the ‘A’ marked group, the porcelains of the first

patent of Thomas Frye and Edward Heylyn of 1744, to those of the first bone ash porcelains of Thomas Frye’s patent of 1749. [2]

The muted famille-rose palette echoes that of ‘A’ marks wares as does the way of colouring petals with raised washes of colour.

No examples of this group have been found in excavations of the Bow site which is perhaps not surprising for such a rare group.

We know of five other examples of this form in:

The British Museum (1966, 2-1,1) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

· The Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina, Delholm Collection (1986.4.15)

The Geoffrey Freeman Collection, Pallant House.

· And one in a private collection

[1] See Tait 1959.

[2] See Gabszewicz 1982, p. 24, no. 4.

A CHELSEA MODEL OF A FINCH

Decorated in a London enamelling studio

Raised or early Red Anchor period

Circa 1750 - 54

Height 15.2 cm

No mark

This exact model is also known with typical Chelsea factory decoration. This version has the brilliant palette and flower painting that one also finds on St James’s, ‘Girl-in-a-Swing’, figures and wares and occasionally on Dry-Edge Derby pieces.

The distinctive type of painting is the work of an independent London enamelling studio which can be plausibly identified as the work of the James Giles workshop, which was active in Kentish Town, three miles north of Giles’s Soho retail establishment. It is probable that the decoration was arranged through William Duesbury who operated as an intermediary in having pieces decorated. In his ‘London Account Book 1751-1753’ he lists on May 30th 1751 ‘1 pr of Goldfinches 0 – 2 - 6’ and on 1751 June 15 ‘pr Goldfinches Chell (sea) 2 – 0’, the price of two shillings and sixpence is too low for a sale price and suggests that it was payment for their decoration. [1]

Another example of our finch also has the typical flower painting that is often associated with Charles Gouyn’s ‘Girl-ina-Swing’ factory [2], Adams attributes this figure to the St James’s factory (as did we when we sold it to her some years ago!).

Provenance

Private Collection

· Armin B. Allen, London

Richard C. Paine

Stoner and Evans, London

[1]

[2]

See Macalister 1930, for the Duesbury’s full account book 1751-1753, introduction by Mrs Donald Macalister.

See Elizabeth Adams, Chelsea Porcelain, 2001, p. 47, fig. 5.4.

AN ENGLISH OPAQUE WHITE GLASS VASE

Probably South Staffordshire Circa 1755

Height 12.5 cm

The drawing of this type of glass, with freely drawn chinoiseries in bold colours on a densely opacified glass body, have been compared to the decoration found on Staffordshire salt-glazed stoneware and on the early chinoiseries on Worcester porcelain.

Glass of this type was once attributed to Bristol and the delft painter William Edkins; a Staffordshire attribution is now generally accepted.

Provenance

Mrs Applewhaite-Abbott, Sotheby's, 30th June 1952

Christie's 14th December 1983, lot 50 Anthony du Boulay Collection Exhibited

'Gilding the Lily', Delomosne & Son Ltd., 1978

Top Worcester circa 1753, Bristol Museum & Art Gallery

JEFFERYES HAMETT O’NEALE AND HENRI-JOSEPH DUVIVIER

Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale and Henri-Joseph Duvivier were the two most talented painters at Chelsea in the 1750s and early 1760s. They also worked independently on Chinese porcelain perhaps when production was slow during the transition between the Red and Gold Anchor Periods, or when failed or insufficient production meant there was little white Chelsea porcelain to decorate. This might also have coincided with disruptions caused by Nicholas Sprimont’s periods of illness.

There is good reason to think that they worked at, or at least had their works fired at, the James Giles workshop since some of the distinctive gilt palmette borders, such as on the fable cup and saucer [See catalogue number 64] are known Giles patterns. The Giles workshop gilding struggled to adhere to hard paste Chinese porcelain and it is often rather rubbed.

Duvivier was the more polished and proficient artist, but O’Neale had the ability to bring a scene to life; his figures and rather attenuated animals always engage with each other with a sparkling interplay and immediacy.

The exact genealogy of the Duvivier family has caused much discussion; the best opinion now is that Joseph and Henri-Joseph are the same person. [1] He returned to his Native Flanders to Tournai in about 1762. Here, François-Joseph Peterinck (1719–1799), who established the Tournai factory, mentioned Henri-Joseph Duvivier as "peintre sur porcelaine en Angleterre" in his petition to city authorities of 15 March 1763, in which he explains his need to hire more painters. Duvivier

was hired with the condition that he would also instruct other pupils (apprentices) in painting. Peterinck speaks of HenriJoseph's "talents supérieurs, " later calling him "premier peintre de la manufacture." [2]

O’Neale, on the basis of his name, is thought to have come from Ireland but no early records of his life exist. He produced some inventive satirical prints in the 1760s and numerous sheets of small engravings for the publisher Robert Sayer that could have been sold individually and were also included in various editions of The Ladies Amusement. He is best know for his work at Chelsea and afterwards at Worcester. He later worked for Josiah Wedgwood but his work there has not been identified. He ended his life in poverty back in London. [3]

[1]

[2]

[3]

For a full discussion see Jacob-Hanson 2007.

Soil de Moriamé 1910, p. 73.

See O’Connell 2021 for a resumé of his life and work as an artist.

A CHINESE TEABOWL

Decorated in London by Henri-Joseph Duvivier

Circa 1758-60

Diam. 8.0 cm

Different hands are found painting fanciful birds in the Giles workshop, this is the by the best of them. The delicacy of the fronds of foliage are typical of the work of Henri-Joseph Duvivier when he returned to Tournai where groups of three birds became a favoured type of decoration. Provenance

· Dr Bernard Watney Collection

A CHINESE SUGAR BOWL

Decorated in London by Henri-Joseph Duvivier

Circa 1758-60

Diam. 11.7 cm

Height 5.8 cm

Duvivier’s chinoiseries, loosely in the style of Jean-Baptiste Pillement, are distinguished by a lyrical elegance. Very much the same painting can be found on Chelsea porcelain of the early Gold Anchor Period and then on Tournai porcelain in the 1760s, often also in a green monochrome. [1]

[1] See, Soil de Moriamé 1910.

Provenance

· Dr Bernard Watney Collection Bonhams, 17 May 2017, lot 283

Literature

Stephen Hanscombe, James Giles, China and Glass Painter (1718-80), (London: Stockspring Antiques 2005), No. 122

A CHINESE PORCELAIN TEA BOWL AND SAUCER

Decorated in London by Jefferyes Hammet O’Neale

Circa 1756 – 60

The saucer marked ‘1’, the teabowl ‘82’ in red The saucer diam. 12.3 cm

We retained this teabowl and saucer as a memento from a part service that we had in 1999. Uniquely for Jefferyes Hammet O’Neale each piece was marked with a number which referred to the fable in the Reverend Samuel Croxall’s celebrated Croxall’s Fables of Aesop first published 1722 and subsequently much reprinted. O’Neale adapted the rather clumsy woodcuts of Croxall which were published in some versions of The Ladies Amusement.

The distinctive gilt border of linked palmettes, alternatively long and short, pointing inwards, is one of those used at the Giles workshop. The same border is found on one of the Worcester ‘Grubbe’ plates (V & A, C.877-1935) that were given to the Victoria and Albert Museum by Mrs Dora E. Grubbe in 1935, who said that they had been decorated by an ancestor of her husband, a descendant of James Giles. [1] [2]

[1] For a discussion of these famous plates, see Mallet 2012.

[2] For further reading see See O’Connell 2021, pp. 109-115, fig. 145 p. 110; and Hanscombe 2010.

Provenance

· Sotheby’s, London, 13 September 1999, lot 153

Literature

Stephen Hanscombe, Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale, China Painter and Illustrator, (London: Stockspring Antiques 2010), p. 90, no. 75

J.V.G. Mallet, ‘Further thoughts on the Grubbe Plates’, Transactions of the English Ceramic Circle, 2012, vol. 23, pp. 213-229

Left No. 1 ‘The cock and the Jewel’, The Ladies Amusement, pl. 102

Right No. 82 ‘The Lion and the Frog’, The Ladies Amusement, pl. 110

A

CHINESE PORCELAIN PART TEA SERVICE DECORATED IN LONDON

By Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale with scenes from the Commedia dell’Arte Circa 1756-60

The popularity of the Italian Comedy in London in the 18th century is well documented and they were often performed as ‘afterpieces’ to more serious plays. The scenes on this service seem to depict a continuous narrative but no graphic source is known, it was perhaps some theatrical playbill or series of illustrations to a harlequinade that have not survived. The scenes show an apparently dead harlequin being lamented over by Columbine yet later emerging from a coffin to terrify the onlookers. Amongst the numerous performances of harlequinades recorded was one performed on the 4 March 1754 at the Little Haymarket entitled The Coup de Grace; or, The Death of Harlequin.

O’Neale is best known for his fables and picturesque classical landscapes, his Commedia Dell’Arte or Italian Comedy is much rarer. The only other recorded pieces are a smaller part tea service in the British Museum [1] and the teapot presumed to be from the same service in the Royal Museum of Scotland, two coffee cans in a private collection [2], and a teapot in the Peabody Essex Museum. [3] Our service is the most important group of O’Neale decorated Chinese porcelain known.

Provenance

Sotheby’s, London, Important Collection of Continental Pottery and Porcelain, the Property of a Gentleman, 21 May 1968, lot 92 ill. Facing p. 42

Antonio Marceto Collection Exhibited

The Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, Exhibition, ‘High Tea, Glorious Manifestations, East and West’, February 19 to May 24, 2015.

· Laurie Barnes and Anne Bissonnette, Exhibition catalogue, ‘High Tea: Glorious Manifestations East and West’, Norton Museum of Art, 2014, pp. 96 & 97

Literature

Guiseppe Morazzoni, Le Porcellane Italiane, (Milan 1960), Vol. I, pl. 49 & 50 (Published, incorrectly, as having been decorated at the Cozzi factory in Venice)

· Sheila O’Connell, ‘Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale (fl.1750-1801): porcelain painter and print designer’. In: Pots, Prints and Politics: Ceramics with an Agenda, from the 14th to the 20th Century, Patricia Ferguson (Ed.), British Museum Research Publications, vol. 229, 2021, pp. 109-115, figs. 145 & 146, p. 110 [1] Krahl & Harrison-Hall 1994, p. 348, no.158. [2] Hanscombe 2010, no. 84 p. 96. [3] Sargent 2012 p. 515, no. 285.

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