Lot Essay
Finials in the form of seated figures are a distinctive characteristic of du Paquier porcelain made in the 1730s and are most often seen surmounting the covers of small and large tureens. The present example of a Turk appears to be a relatively rare form. A tureen, stand and cover with the same finial, formerly in the Otto and Magdalena Blohm Collection and now in the Metropolitian Museum of Art, New York is illustrated by Robert Schmidt, Early European Porcelain as Collected by Otto Blohm, Munich, 1953, pl. 11, No. 34. Another example of a tureen, cover and stand of the same shape but with a seated Turk finial of a different design is illustrated by Meredith Chilton (ed.), Fired by Passion, Vienna Baroque Porcelain of Claudius Innocentius du Paquier, Stuttgart, 2009, Vol. I, p. 244, fig. 3:17. For a third tureen and cover with another variant of the seated Turkish figure finial see J. Folnesics and Dr. E.W. Braun, Geschichte der K.K. Wiener Porzellanmanufaktur, Vienna, 1907, pl. VIII, no. 2.