Bonhams 1793 : An important Meissen royal armorial saucepan, cover and stand (Reintl), circa 1745

An important Meissen armorial saucepan, cover and stand (Reintl), circa 1745

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 important Meissen royal armorial saucepan, cover and stand (Reintl), circa 1745

Each decorated with the Royal arms of Poland/Saxony/Habsburg, superbly painted landscape scenes within gilt trellis cartouches edged with iron-red and purple scrollwork and scattered flowers (Holzschnittblumen), depicting elegant figures by waterfront palaces and hunt scenes, elaborate gilt scrollwork borders to the rims, the pinecone finial gilt, the saucepan raised on three scroll feet moulded with acanthus leaves and embellished in gilding and fitted with a turned ebony handle, the stand: 26.3cm diam.; the saucepan and cover: 18cm high, crossed swords marks in underglaze-blue, impressed 22 to stand (3)

Sold for £67,250 inc. premium

Footnotes

Provenance:
The Dowager Duchess of Westminster, Bourdon House, London (by 1921), sold by Christie's, Woburn Abbey, 20-21 September 2004, lot 1111;
With Brian Haughton Antiques

Literature:
Ulrich Pietsch / Claudia Banz, Triumph der blauen Schwerter (2010), cat. no. 108;
Ulrich Pietsch, Passion for Meissen (2010), no. 64

Exhibited:
Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden - Porzellansammlung im Zwinger, Japanisches Palais, Triumph der blauen Schwerter. Meissener Porzellan für Adel und Bürgertum 1710-1815, 8 May-29 August 2010

Two other saucepans with the arms of Maria Josepha, Queen of Poland and Electress of Saxony, are recorded: one without a stand painted with landscape scenes in cartouches and with the same provenance as the present lot (sold by Christie's London, 20-21 September 2004, lot 1112) is now in the Dresden Porcelain Collection (inv. no. P.E. 7823); a second with its stand, decorated with Watteauesque scenes without cartouches was sold by Christie's Rome, 24 May 1972, lot 275, and again by Sotheby's London, 17 June 1975, lot 109. Another saucepan with cover and stand with finely painted floral decoration is in the collection of the Bavarian National Museum, Munich (published by Rainer Rückert, Meissener Porzellan 1710-1810 (1966), nos. 576 and 577.

Kaendler's work records for April 1745 record: 'Zu einem Reintl für Ihro Majest. die Königin einen sauber verzierten Fuß poußiret' [a cleanly ornamented foot formed for a reintl for Her Majesty The Queen]; and in September 1745:n '1 verzierten Fuß und Stiel zu einem Reintel in Gestalt eines Tiegels gefertiget' [1 ornamented foot and handle completed for a reintel in the form of a saucepan] (quoted by Rückert, loc. cit.).

Another Meissen saucepan most likely of the same shape is recorded in the inventories of Madame de Pompadour (here listed as a Meissen poêlon on tripod feet). For a reference to this piece see Rosalind Savill, The Wallace Collection, catalogue of Sèvres porcelain (1988), no C448-9, p.689.