Bonhams 1793 : A highly important Meissen armorial beaker with the arms of Naples-Sicily and Saxony-Poland-Lithuania, circa 1737

A Meissen armorial beaker with the arms of Naples-Sicily and Saxony-Poland-Lithuania circa 1737

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

A highly important Meissen armorial beaker with the arms of Naples-Sicily and Saxony-Poland-Lithuania, circa 1737

Superbly painted with the arms over a continuous Kauffahrtei scene depicting merchants and their wares by a quayside, the interior and footrim gilt, 7.1cm high, crossed swords mark within two concentric circles in underglaze-blue

Estimate:

£25,000 - 30,000
€29,000 - 35,000
US$ 39,000 - 47,000

Footnotes

Provenance:
Gift of Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, to his eldest daughter, Maria Amalia, on the occasion of her wedding to Charles VII, King of Naples;
Anon. sale, Christie's London, 2 December 1974, lot 139;
With Andreina Torre, Zürich;
Vivolo Collection, sold by Sotheby's Milan, 13 November 2007, lot 145

Literature:
Claus Boltz, Ein Beitrag zum grünen Watteau-Service für Neapel. Keramos 79 (January 1978), p. 5, ills. 1 and 4;
Luca Melegati, Le porcellane araldische di una collezione privata. Ceramicantica (1992), p. 20;
Andreina d'Agliano / Luca Melegati, I Fragili Lussi (2001), no. 99;
Ulrich Pietsch, Passion for Meissen (2010), no. 73

The wedding of Princess Maria Amalia of Saxony (1724-1760) and Charles VII (1716-1788) took place by proxy in Dresden in May 1738. The same month, Maria Amalia travelled to Naples to meet her husband, accompanied by her sixteen-year-old brother, Crown Prince Friedrich Christian, who was embarking on his Grand Tour of Italy, including a visit to Naples to seek treatment for a spinal condition (M. Cassidy-Geiger, 'Je reçu ce Soir le monde marqué': A Crown Prince of Saxony on the Grand Tour in Italy, 1738-1750. The International Fine Arts and Antique Dealers Show Handbook (2004), pp. 21-31).

The new queen apparently received from her father a gift of a silver toilet service, which included six teabowls and saucers and six chocolate beakers. A Meissen manufactory specification of 17 April 1738, records that '6 Schaelgen und Coppgen inwendig gantz verguld, mit dem Koenigl. Pohl. Saechs. und Sicilianischen Wappen 6 Choclate Becer bedies in die grosse Toilett gehoerig [...] annoch in Arbeit und zu liefern' (6 saucers and bowls completely gilt on the inside, with the Royal Polish Saxon and Sicilian arms 6 chocolate beaker both belonging to the large toilet [...] still in production and to be delivered) (quoted by Boltz (1978), p. 5; see also M. Cassidy-Geiger, Princes and Porcelain on the Grand Tour of Italy, Fragile Diplomacy (2007), p. 218 and n. 50). A lavish gift of porcelain to mark the occasion was also made to Charles VII's mother, Elizabeth Farnese, Queen of Spain (Boltz 1978; M. Cassidy-Geiger (2007), pp. 213ff).

No silver apparently survives from this toilet service, which was probably silver-gilt, and it may have been melted down (Cassidy-Geiger 2007, n. 50). Including the present lot, only three beakers and four teabowls are recorded in the literature: two beakers, including the present lot, were sold by Christie's London, 2 December 1974 (the other now in the Malcolm D. Gutter collection (Cassidy-Geiger (2007), fig. 10-20); another beaker was in the Hoffmeister Collection (sold in these Rooms, 25 November 2009, lot 85, formerly in the Dr. Albert Weitnauer Collection, Bern); and a total of four teabowls, of which two were sold by Christie's London, 11 May 1987, lot 188 (of which one was previously sold by Christie's London, 2 December 1974, while the second has been in the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche di Faenza since 1994), and two sold from the Ernesto Blohm collection (Christie's London, 10 April 1989, lot 31, previously sold by Sotheby's London, 7 July 1970, lot 146).