Sophie von der Goltz
Head of Sale
Lot 12*
A very rare Meissen armorial waste bowl, circa 1725
2 December 2025, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£7,000 - £9,000
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Nette Megens
Head of Department, Director
Sebastian Kuhn
Department Director
Raphael Machiels
Associate Specialist
Ghislaine Howard
Sale Coordinator
A very rare Meissen armorial waste bowl, circa 1725
Each side painted with an armorial shield within a scrollwork cartouche, the sides each with a superbly painted chinoiserie vignette depicting two figures, animals and flowers, all on an iron-red double-line border, the inside with a vignette painted in enamels and Böttger lustre of rockowrk and flowers within iron-red concentric circles, the inside rim with three elaborate gilt scrollwork brackets enclosing Böttger lustre and a gilt trellis panel, gilt-edged rim and footrim, 17.3cm across; 7.9cm high
Footnotes
Only three other pieces from this rare, early armorial service are recorded: an oval sugar bowl and cover with K.P.M. and crossed swords mark in underglaze blue in the Museo Giuseppe Gianetti in Sarono (published in L. Brambilla Bruni, Porcellane di Meissen, 1994, cat. no. 40); a teabowl and saucer was in the Ludwig Darmstaedter collection, Berlin (sold at Lepke's Berlin, 24-26 March 1925, lot 130; another teabowl and saucer was in the collection of Baronne Alix de Rothschild (sold at Christie's London, 28 June 1976, lot 172).
Several similar armorial services for Venetian families (for example, Grimani, Pisani, Contarini, da Lezze and (possibly) Emo) were made at Meissen around the same time, though the reason these services were presumably given by the Saxon court remain to be discovered.
The vignette depicting the standing figure holding a hood over the head of his companion is based on an engraving after an illustration in Arnoldus Montanus' Gedenkwaerdige gesantschappen der Oost-Indische Maetschappy in't Vereenigde Nederland, aen de kaisaren van Japan, published in Amsterdam in 1669, probably the adaptaion published in Nuremberg by Christoph Weigel (S. Ducret, Keramik und Graphik, 1973. ill. 244). Both scenes on this bowl are also depicted with variations on an early Meissen porcelain teapot decorated and signed around 1730 in black monochrome in Vienna by Carl Wendelin Anreiter von Ziernfeld in the style associated with Ignaz Preissler Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna, KE 6311-1.