Lot Essay
The present service is one of a few extant examples, each varying slightly in coloration but all of the highest standards of production. Indeed, so prized were these services decorated en mosaique that they were included in the biannual fine arts exhibitions of paintings and sculpture held at the Berlin's Royal Academy of Visual Arts and Mechanical Sciences.
Several artists are recorded as having produced these services after the Antique, including Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Maywald (1766-1842), who was the Malereidekorationsvorgesetzte or director of the painting workshop. Maywald is recorded exhibiting such wares at the Academy five times between 1802 and 1812. The painters Randow Christenfeld, Rhotig and Dumoulin each exhibited once within the same ten-year span. As the aritistic and factory records for this category are incomplete, a firm attribution cannot be confirmed at present. See H. Borsch-Supan, Die Katalogue der Berliner-Akademie Ausstellungen 1786-1850, Berlin, 1971, vol. I; E. Köllman, Berliner Porzellan 1763-1963, Braunswick, 1966, vol. II, tafel 191a for a cup and saucer similar in shape and decoration to the present example.
Other examples sold, but lacking their trays, include Christie's, New York, 24 May 2001, lot 332 and Christie's, London, 1 May 2002, lot 110. Also see S. Wittwer, Rafinese & Eleganz, Munich, 2007, pp. 190-195, no. 23 for a very a similar cup and saucer and nos. 27 and 28 for other examples of this form with micro-mosaic decoration, all in the Twinight Collection. At the time of cataloguing, no other examples of a tea-caddy with this decoration were extant.
Several artists are recorded as having produced these services after the Antique, including Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Maywald (1766-1842), who was the Malereidekorationsvorgesetzte or director of the painting workshop. Maywald is recorded exhibiting such wares at the Academy five times between 1802 and 1812. The painters Randow Christenfeld, Rhotig and Dumoulin each exhibited once within the same ten-year span. As the aritistic and factory records for this category are incomplete, a firm attribution cannot be confirmed at present. See H. Borsch-Supan, Die Katalogue der Berliner-Akademie Ausstellungen 1786-1850, Berlin, 1971, vol. I; E. Köllman, Berliner Porzellan 1763-1963, Braunswick, 1966, vol. II, tafel 191a for a cup and saucer similar in shape and decoration to the present example.
Other examples sold, but lacking their trays, include Christie's, New York, 24 May 2001, lot 332 and Christie's, London, 1 May 2002, lot 110. Also see S. Wittwer, Rafinese & Eleganz, Munich, 2007, pp. 190-195, no. 23 for a very a similar cup and saucer and nos. 27 and 28 for other examples of this form with micro-mosaic decoration, all in the Twinight Collection. At the time of cataloguing, no other examples of a tea-caddy with this decoration were extant.