CIRCA 1723-24, DREHER’S X TO THE SAUCER

The present lot is part of an early service with iron-red chinoiserie figures which are thought to have been painted by Johann Gregorius Höroldt.¹ There has been debate among scholars about whether the chinoiserie service was produced at du Paquier’s factory in Vienna and painted there by Höroldt before his departure for Meissen in 1720.² There are surviving pieces of du Paquier porcelain with chinoiserie decoration that corresponds to figures found in Höroldt’s Schulz Codex sketchbook (which is thought to date from circa 1723-24, and which was used at Meissen as a source of inspiration to painter’s in his workshop).³ In his first year at Meissen, Höroldt is recorded as having painted a ‘service decorated in red’, but it is not known if any of these pieces have survived or not. A teapot which is thought to be from the same service as the present lot bears an underglaze KPM mark, which suggests a very slightly later date for the service if this is the case.

The scene on the present saucer which has a man on a throne with two mythical beasts corresponds to a scene on sheet 18 of Höroldt’s Schulz Codex. Höroldt took his inspiration from this scene from Athanasius Kircher's 1667 engraving 'China monumentis qua Sacris qua Profanis [...]'. The engraving is illustrated by Claudia Bodinek, Raffinesse im Akkord: Meissener porzellanmalerei und ihre grafischen vorlagen, Dresden, 2018, Vol. II, p. 565.

1. Another beaker and saucer was sold by Sothebys, London, on the 7 November 1972, lot 145, as the companion to the present lot. This example is now in the Arnhold Collection and is illustrated by Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, The Arnhold Collection of Meissen Porcelain 1710-50, London, 2008, p. 298, no. 74. The teapot and cover, waste-bowl, three beakers and saucers and three teabowls and saucers from the same service were sold by Christie's, London, on the 28 June 1976, lots 138-143. For another early service painted with European figures, which is thought to possibly have been painted by J.G. Höroldt in circa 1722-23, see Maria L. Santangelo, A Princely Pursuit, The Malcolm D. Gutter Collection of Early Meissen Porcelain, Trento, 2018, p. 247, numbers 73 (teabowl and saucer) and 75 (teapot).
2. Noted by Ulrich Pietsch, Early Meissen Porcelain, Carabelli Collection, Munich, 2000, pp. 34-35 and p. 38).
3. See Johanna Lessmann, ‘du Paquier and Meissen: inspiration and competition’, in Fired by Passion, Vienna Baroque Porcelain of Claudius Innocentius du Paquier, Stuttgart, 2009, Vol. I, p. 453-455 for du Paquier pieces decorated with a figure which is extremely similar to a figure found in the Schulz Codex. For a pair of du Paquier pilgrim-flasks decorated in iron-red with chinoiserie figures which correspond to figures in Höroldt’s Schulz Codex, see Mary and Peter White, Drinking at the Whites’ House, Ceramics from the Whites’ House collection, 2021, Vol. 2, p. 427.