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An important Meissen armorial teabowl and saucer circa 1737
£18,000 - £22,000
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Find your local specialistAn important Meissen armorial teabowl and saucer
Each painted with the royal arms of France and Poland, on the saucer against a quatrelobe landscape cartouche depicting an estuary scene reserved against a burnished gold ground, the teabowl with the arms against a continuous landscape scene with a burnished gilt interior, Saucer: 12.8cm diam., crossed swords marks in underglaze-blue, impressed Dreher's mark * (unidentified) (minor flaking to gilding) (2)
Footnotes
Provenance:
Gift from the Elector Friedrich August II of Saxony (King August III of Poland) in March 1737 to Queen Maria Leszcynska of France;
Acquired in 1991
Literature:
Hoffmeister 1999, II, no. 334;
Unterberg 2005, fig. 14
Exhibited:
Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 1999-2009
This teabowl and saucer was part of a lavish tea and chocolate service given by the Saxon Elector and Polish King to Maria Leszcynska, wife of King Louis XV, in March 1737. The set originally included twelve teabowls and saucers, twelve chocolate beakers and saucers, a waste bowl, a chocolate pot, a milk pot, two teapots, a teapot stand, a sugar box and a tea canister. An elaborate travel case in red leather with gilt tooling was also provided for the service, which was delivered by Maurice de Saxe, the count of Saxony and half-brother of August III.
The precise reason for the gift remains unclear, though August III undoubtedly wished to ingratiate himself with the French Queen. It is likely that that the motivation for the gift lies in the complexities surrounding the Polish succession, whereby the Queen's father, Stanislaw, lost his claim to the Polish throne. Such a lavish and precious gift may have been intended as a signal that Saxony wished to normalize relations with the French court.
Only very few pieces from the service have survived: another teabowl and saucer in the Musée National de Céramique, Sèvres; a teapot in the Gilbert Collection, London; the waste bowl in a private collection; a cup and saucer in the Michele Beiny Harkins Collection, New York, and another was in Seaton Delaval Hall, formerly the home of Baron Hastings (sold Sotheby's London, 29 September 2009, lot 157).
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