CIRCA 1725-30, BLUE AR MONOGRAM

R.G. Vater Collection no. 3741 (paper collection label applied to the underside).

The cut decoration with chinoiserie figures in a landscape emulates Chinese originals of the Kangxi period (1662-1722), and it is extremely rare in Meissen porcelain. Surviving documents do not appear to record the details surrounding the commission of vases of this type with carved decoration, although the Augustus Rex marks indicate that they would have been commissioned by the king for himself, or to be given as gifts.¹ A Meissen white beaker-vase with the same type of cut decoration as the present lot, which also bears an Augustus Rex mark, is in the State Porzellansammlung, Dresden (Inv.-Nr.: P.E. 7698),² and another beaker-vase was sold by Sotheby’s, London, on 16 July 1991, lot 110 (although this may be the Dresden example). The Dresden beaker-vase (and the Sotheby’s 1991 vase, if it is a different vase) and the present baluster vase may have once been part of the same garniture, but it is unclear if the vases were deemed to have unacceptable firing defects, and were consequently left undecorated, or if they were intended to be left in the white.

Another related type of chinoiserie decoration was produced at Meissen in response to Kangxi originals; this was in low relief, rather than the cut decoration of the present lot, which is not in low relief. A very small number of these were made, of which some have coloured enamel decoration,³ and some were also left in the white. Undecorated white examples of this low relief decoration also exist; a baluster vase and a beaker-vase in Prague⁴ illustrated by Rudolf Just in 1959 were part of a garniture of six vases formerly at Schloss Dux in Bohemia.⁵ It is equally unclear whether these vases were meant to remain undecorated, or if they were left in white because their firing faults were considered to be unacceptable.

1. Noted by Julia Weber, Meißener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern, Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Munich, 2013, Vol. II, p. 328, where Weber notes that surviving documents do not appear to discuss these extraordinary vases.
2. Illustrated by Ulrich Pietsch, Meissener Porzellan und seine Ostasiatischen Vorbilder, Leipzig, 1996, p. 99, fig. 40, where it is illustrated alongside a Chinese vase of similar form (with additional coloured enamel decoration) from the Kangxi period, illustrated by J. Weber cited above. This vase in Dresden is not part of the historic collection, and was acquired from the Art Trade in 1994.
3. Part of a garniture of Meissen vases (with the addition of coloured enamel decoration), formerly in the J.P. Morgan Collection and now in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford (Inv. Nr. 1917.1186,1188,1187), are illustrated by Julia Weber, Meißener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern, Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Munich, 2013, Vol. II, p. 329, fig. 50.
4. These are illustrated by Rudolf Just, 'Unbemalte Augustus-Rex-Vasen' in Keramik-Freunde der Schweiz, No. 48, October 1959, pl. I, figs. 1 and 2, and p. 27. Just notes that the baluster vase is made in two sections and looted together, in the same manner as the Kangxi originals, and notes that there was a garniture of six vases. A baluster vase with this low relief decoration in the white in Schloss Jägerhof is not published. A baluster vase with low relief decoration of the same type (with the addition of coloured enamel) was sold by Sotheby’s, London, on 28 November 1961, lot 159.
5. The Counts Waldstein at Schloss Dux (or Duchov) had the finest collection of porcelain in Bohemia, including twenty-two Meissen white busts of Habsburg rulers. Augustus III visited the Schloss in 1739, and later acquired most of the paintings collection in 1741.