CIRCA 1710-12, THE MOUNTS CONTEMPORARY

Painted numerals 552. in black to the underside. R.G. Vater Collection no. 502 (paper collection label attached to cover interior).

Tankards and vessels with cut facetted ornament were among the first pieces advertised for sale at the Leipzig Easter Fair in 1710: ‘Erstlich findet man Geschirre / als Tisch-Krüge / Thée-Bottgens / Türckische Caffée-Kannen und Aufsetzen nüztliche Sorten / von duncklen und hochrothen Farben / welche theils mit Zug- und Laubwerck künstlich geschnitten / theils auch wegen ihrer ungemeinen Härte / al sein Jaspis, so wohl godroniret oder glatt poliret / als auch eckigt und facet geschliffen sind / und vortrefflichen Lustre haben / auch einen hellen Thon / al sein Metall von sich geben’ (Firstly one finds vessels such as tankards, teapots, Turkish coffee pots and vases of required kinds, dark and deep red in colour, which are partially cut to be decorated with Laub- und Bandelwerk ornament and partially – due to their exceptional hardness that equals jasper – gadrooned or polished plain, or cut in edges or facets, and have remarkable sheen as well as a resonant tone like metal).¹

This tankard is an extremely fine example of how successful Böttger’s factory adapted techniques which had previously only been used on precious stones and glass to finishing stoneware pieces. The majority of the exterior surface is a pattern of shimmering facets, all reflecting and catching the light at different angles.

It was originally thought that the glass-cutters achieved these remarkable gemuschelt surfaces (with multiple facets, such as the present lot) by cutting alone, but this was disproved by the plaster moulds at Meissen, which clearly showed that the majority of the gemuschelt surface on some pieces was actually moulded, and it was then finished by the Bohemian glass-cutters after firing,² a process which would have saved a great deal of time and labour.³ Although this was the case for teapots, it was different for tankards, which were thrown.⁴ The 1711 manufactory inventory has twelve entries recording a total of 383 tankards at various stages of production, of which three were polished and gemuschelt, and in 1719 there was one gemuschelt tankard listed still at the factory.⁵

In 1710 the factory ‘conducteur’, Adam Heinrich Blumenthal, was sent to Bohemia to recruit a team of glass-cutters. He recruited Samuel Hölzel, his two sons and 27 other glass-cutters and polishers. Böttger’s plan for a grinding and polishing mill on the river Weiβeritz was not completed until 1713, by which time the demand for stoneware was due to wane with the arrival of white porcelain. In 1712 there were only four glass workers left.⁶ Although it’s possible the present tankard could have been created shortly after 1712, it is more likely to have been made in the first few years of production.

Two tankards with cut facet decoration are illustrated by Willi Goder et al., Johann Friedrich Böttger, Die Erfindung des Europäischen Porzellans, Leipzig, 1982, fig. 60.

1. Barbara Szelegejd, Red and Black Stoneware and their Imitations in the Wilanów Collection, Bielsko-Biala, 2013, p. 223, citing I. Menzhausen and M. Mields, Böttgersteinzeug – Böttgerporzellan aus der Dresdener Porzellansammlung, Zum 250. Todestag Johann Friedrich Böttgers, Dresden, 1969, p. 14.
2. Barbara Szelegejd, ibid., 2013, p. 151.
3. Claus Bolz, ‘Formen des Böttgersteinzeugs im Jahre 1711’ in Keramik-Freunde der Schweiz, No. 96, March 1982, p. 8.
4. Barbara Szelegejd, ibid., p. 224, notes that Claus Bolz was unable to correlate any of the tankards recorded in the manufactory with plaster moulds in the August 1711 inventory of moulds at Meissen (under numbers 1-143), Bolz, ibid., 1982, p. 35, but she also notes ‘the fact that fifty-three unfired items were already described as covered with a “honeycomb pattern”, fluted (or ribbed) indicates that the decoration was made from a mould, even before the red stoneware was hardened by fire’. However, Ulrich Pietsch notes that the unfired stoneware was cut with a knife, see Ulrich Pietsch ‘”Of red or brown porcelain” – decoration and refinement of Böttger stoneware’ in Dirk Syndram and Ulrike Weinhold (Ed.), Böttger Stoneware, Johann Friedrich Böttger and Treasury Art, Altenburg, 2009, p. 44.
5. Bolz, ‘Steinzeug und Porzellan der Böttgerperiode – Die Inventare und die Ostermesse des Jahres 1719 –’ in Keramos No. 167⁄168, April 2000, p. 44, table 4.
6. Ulrich Pietsch, ibid., Altenburg, 2009, p. 38.