CIRCA 1710-15, THE COLD COLOUR DECORATION PROBABLY MARTIN SCHNELL WORKSHOP, DRESDEN, THE UPPER MOUNT LATER, PROBABLY 19TH CENTURY

Tankards with ‘black lacquer’ decoration are very rare as it appears that very few were made, as evidenced by inventories of the factory’s products.  An inventory of the factory’s stock in August 1711 listed 383 stoneware tankards, but only one of them appears to have had ‘black lacquer’ decoration.¹ 

Böttger's early factory quickly adapted the use of black lacquer and other decorative elements found on Asian imports into its highly innovative repertoire for the decoration of red stoneware.  Red stoneware and black-glazed red stoneware were first offered for sale at the Easter Fair (Ostermesse) at Leipzig in 1710, the same year that the factory opened.  Also in January the same year, Martin Schnell was employed by Augustus 'The Strong', Elector of Saxony, as his Hofflacquirer (Court lacquerer), and a collaboration with the Meissen factory was formed.  Schnell is recorded as having been paid a high salary by the factory for lacquering and decorating red stoneware.  In a list of factory workers drawn up in Autumn 1710 (probably by Böttger himself), a Laccirer Schnell is recorded with a weekly salary of 5 thalers.²  By August 1711 he was hugely busy, being paid 30 thalers every two weeks.³  It is clear from his extremely high wages that his work was very highly regarded by Augustus, even if the wages included the cost of the gold which he needed for his work.⁴

Specific information about Schnell's work appears to be scant.  Monika Kopplin takes on the problem of attribution for Schnell's work by detailed comparison between simulated lacquerwork on Böttger pieces with lacquer furniture and other wood objects applied with lacquer decoration known to have been supplied by Schnell.⁵  Schnell’s workshop didn’t decorate Meissen stoneware pieces for very long; from 1716 onwards Schnell's name no longer appears in the Meissen records.  The factory's development and shift to white porcelain production from 1713 onwards is thought to be a factor in this, and by 1717, Schnell and his workshop were fully preoccupied with the fittings and interior decoration of various buildings for the king.
 
For cold colour chinoiserie figures and flowering shrubs very similar to those on the present lot, see the pair of ormolu-mounted vases illustrated by Kopplin and attributed to Schnell’s workshop.⁶   A Böttger tankard with closely related simulated black lacquer and chinoiserie decoration (and with a silver-gilt cover) from the Margarete and Franz Oppenheimer Collection and subsequently the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, was sold by Sotheby’s, New York, on 14 September 2021, lot 4.  A tankard in the Wilanów Palace Museum, Warsaw, has similar simulated black lacquer and chinoiserie decoration and a glazed stoneware cover similar to the present lot.⁷ 
 
1.  Claus Bolz, ‘Formen des Böttgersteinzeugs im Jahre 1711’, in Keramik-Freunde der Schweiz, 1982, no. 96, p. 35.
2.  Barbara Szelegejd, Red and Black Stoneware and their Imitations in the Wilanów Collection, Warsaw, 2013, p. 211.
3.  Barbara Szelegejd, ibid., 2003, p. 211.
4.  Noted by Monika Kopplin in her essay 'All Sorts of Lacquered Chinese on a Black Glaze - Lacquer Painting on Böttger Stoneware and the Problem of Attribution to Martin Schnell' in 'Schwartz Porcelain', Museum für Lackkunst and Schloβ Favorite bei Rastatt 2003-2004 Exhibition Catalogue, Munich, 2003 (English Edition, Munich, 2004, p. 84).  The 1712 factory payroll records that Schnell's monthly salary was 100 Reichstaler.
5.  Kopplin, ibid., Munich, 2003, pp. 171-193 (English Edition, 2004, pp. 83-91).
6.  Kopplin, ibid., Munich, 2003, p. 191. 
7.  Barbara Szelegejd, ibid., 2013, pp. 207-215, no. 31, where Szelegejd discusses the 2006 scientific tests carried out on this piece and other pieces attributed to Schnell.  Also see Kopplin, ibid., p. 175, fig. 7.