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Lot Essay
J. J. Kändler introduced this type of moulding used on the Sulkowsky service in 1735, and it seems likely that he also modelled this box. Mention is made of a box with basket moulding in his workbook for July 1735 (see B. Beaucamp-Markowsky, Boîtes en Porcelaine, Fribourg, 1985, no. 142 for a similar box in the Kunstindustrimuseum, Copenhagen, and notes from Kändler's workbook).
All the Meissen boxes marked with triangles were produced in the period immediately following the suppression of Freemasonry throughout the Holy Roman Empire by the Bull of Pope Clement XII in 1738, which banned membership of the Freemasons to Catholics. The triangle is therefore almost certainly a secret indication of masonic membership. Another box with a hidden triangle was sold Christie's, London, 14 May 1990, lot 101. This interpretation is supported by the present lot, which was quite clearly supplied for a member of the Mopsorden, a clandestine replacement for Freemasonry in aristocratic society. For a detailed discussion of the Mopsorden, see E. Köllmann, 'Der Mopsorden', Keramos, 50/1970, pp. 71-82.
All the Meissen boxes marked with triangles were produced in the period immediately following the suppression of Freemasonry throughout the Holy Roman Empire by the Bull of Pope Clement XII in 1738, which banned membership of the Freemasons to Catholics. The triangle is therefore almost certainly a secret indication of masonic membership. Another box with a hidden triangle was sold Christie's, London, 14 May 1990, lot 101. This interpretation is supported by the present lot, which was quite clearly supplied for a member of the Mopsorden, a clandestine replacement for Freemasonry in aristocratic society. For a detailed discussion of the Mopsorden, see E. Köllmann, 'Der Mopsorden', Keramos, 50/1970, pp. 71-82.