Bonhams 1793 : An extremely rare Meissen Böttger stoneware teabowl and saucer, circa 1710-13

A Meissen Böttger stoneware teabowl and saucer, circa 1710-15

5 Dec 2012 13:30 GMT London, New Bond Street
The Marouf Collection, Part I: highly important 18th century Meissen porcelain
Back to auction 19610

An extremely rare Meissen Böttger stoneware teabowl and saucer, circa 1710-13

Decorated in the workshop of Martin Schnell, with a deep black manganese lustre in imitation of Japanese lacquer, decorated with gold painted floral ornaments and two dragonflies circling about one another, double-line borders to rims, the teabowl: 4cm high; the saucer: 12.4cm diam., the cup with a paper inventory label reading 859, the saucer with two blue-edged serrated old inventory labels, one reading 860, the other 1089, (minor wear to the gilding on the saucer and inside of the cup) (2)

Sold for £25,000 inc. premium

Footnotes

Provenance:
Margravine Sibylla Augusta of Baden-Baden (1675-1733), Schloß Favorite, Rastatt;
Margravine Caroline Luise of Baden-Durlach (1723-83);
Hereditary Prince Carl Ludwig of Baden-Durlach (1755-1801);
Thence by descent to the Margraves and Grand Dukes of Baden, Grand Ducal Residence, Karlsruhe, and (from 1918), Neues Schloß, Baden-Baden; sold Sotheby's Baden-Baden, 7 October 1995, lot 1267;
The Hoffmeister Collection, Hamburg

Literature:
Verlassenschaft des Prinzen Carl Ludwig von Baden-Durlach, 1805-09, General Landesarchiv Karlsruhe Familienarchiv 6 Person 12 II;
Karl Koelitz, Beschriebendes Inventar der Allerhöchsten Privatsammlung kunstgewerblicher Gegenstände (unpublished ms, Karlsruhe, 1883), nos. 859-860;
Richter, Inventar des Zähringer Museums (unpublished ms, Baden-Baden, 1919), inv. 1088-1089;
Dieter Hoffmeister, Meissener Porzellan des 18. Jahrhunderts. Sammlung Hoffmeister (1999), vol. I, p. 18, no. 3;
Ulrich Pietsch, Passion for Meissen (2010), no. 1

Exhibited:
Karlsruhe, Zähringer Museum (Private Collection of Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden), exhibited in the rooms of the former Grand Ducal Naturalia Cabinet in the Residenzschloss, 1879-1919;
Baden-Baden, Zähringer Museum, Neues Schloss, c. 1960-1990;
Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Sammlung Hoffmeister, 1999-2009

The 18th century inventory of the Margravine Caroline Luise of Baden's collection (reproduced in the posthumous inventory of her son's property (see above Literature) lists six such teabowls and saucers, which were displayed together with the bulk of the porcelain and ceramics in the Naturalia Cabinet in the Karlsruhe Residence: '1 Garnitur von Schwarzer Erde vorgoldeten Borduren und Blumen, bestehend in: 6 Ober und 6 Unter Kaffeeschalen' [1 garniture of black clay with gilt borders and flowers, consisting of: ...6 cup and 6 saucer coffee bowls]. Three teabowls and saucers and a single teabowl were sold from the collection in 1995 and two teabowls and saucers were acquired by the Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Baden-Württemberg (see below).

Another teabowl and saucer from the same service is now in the Arnhold Collection, New York (Cassidy-Geiger 2008, no. 64). Two others, also from the Baden collections, are now in the Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Baden-Württemberg, Schloss Favorite, inv. nos. G 7562-7565 (published by U. Grimm, Favorite Das Porzellanschloss der Sybilla Augusta von Baden-Baden (2010), no. 78; and M. Kopplin (ed.), Schwartz Porcelain (2004), nos. 74a-d). A similar bowl and teabowl decorated with birds in foliage was sold at Christie's London, 12 May 2010, lot 1, and a teabowl in the same rooms, 11 December 2007, lot 1.