Sophie von der Goltz
Head of Sale
Lot 152
A Capodimonte jug or coffee pot, circa 1750
1 December 2025, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£1,500 - £2,000
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Sebastian Kuhn
Department Director
Nette Megens
Head of Department, Director
Raphael Machiels
Associate Specialist
A Capodimonte jug or coffee pot, circa 1750
Finely painted with a large floral spray flanked by two life-like insects, a fly under the scrollwork handle shaded in puce and yellow, 22.8cm high, fleur-de-lys in underglaze-blue, old paper collectors' labels
Footnotes
Provenance
With Robert McPherson Antiques, 2011
The insects are after prints from Joris Hoefnagel's 'Insects Diversae Insectarum Volatilium' published in 1630 and were probably all taken from the same plate. Angela Caròla-Perrotti suggests that the source prints, rather than arriving at the factory as named concise albums, may have arrived in sets more similar to The Ladies' Amusement, which included various prints after - amongst many others - Pillement, Watteau and Piazetta (Angela Caròla-Perrotti, Le Porcellane dei Borbone di Napoli, Capodimonte e Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea 1743-1806, 1986, pp.140-141).
The jug or coffee pot is decorated à fiori tedeschi or with flowers and insects of German type. A similar example is in the Museo Civico Gaetano Filangieri, Naples, and another pot of similar shape was in the Procida Mirabelli di Lauro Collection, sold in these rooms, 6 July 2010, lot 58 (Angela Caròla-Perrotti, Le Porcellane dei Borbone di Napoli, Capodimonte e Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea 1743-1806, 1986, nos.29 and 30). The pot from the Museo Filangieri is also illustrated in 'Ritorno al Barocco, Vol.II, 2009, p.180, no.4.71b, where it is noted that in fact the decoration also closely resembles flowers on Vincennes porcelain, a notion that is strengthened by the similarities in paste between the Capodimonte and Vincennes factory, both using soft-paste rather than the German hard-paste porcelain.
All of the above-mentioned pots and many of the coffee pots and indeed smaller pots of the same shape are missing their covers. Caròla-Perrotti, 1986, notes that the large absence of covers might be due to an imprecision of the factory. There are many more coffee pots and sugar bowls listed in the inventory than covers.
Important Notice to Buyers
Condition is not specified in the lot cataloguing. Please request a condition report.