CIRCA 1740, PRESSNUMMER 23

Details

A MEISSEN BUTTER-TUB AND COVER
CIRCA 1740, PRESSNUMMER 23
The tub with two square lugs with gilt flowerheads enclosing pierced apertures, the sides with two river landscape vignettes and two smaller vignettes, with figures on horseback, merchants, barrels, ships and distant towns, within elongated quatrefoil cartouches edged with gilt diaper panels and scrolls enclosing purple sgraffito diaper panels, each cartouche joined by scalloped hexagonal gilt diaper panels, between gilt borders of scrolls and palmettes, the cover with four further vignettes in similar cartouches about a gilt cone finial, the rim with a similar gilt border and two cut indentations (minute wear)
The cover 4 13/16 in. (12.3 cm.) diam.

Exhibited

Musée Ariana, Geneva, 1999.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

Lot Essay

A butter-tub and cover in the Carabelli Collection is of comparable quality; the cartouches include purple sgraffito diaper panels similar to those on the present lot, but the decoration is a little more sparse than that on the present lot. For the Carabelli example, see Ulrich Pietsch, 'Early Meissen porcelain, Carabelli Collection' Catalogue [Munich, 2000], pp. 258-259, no. 132. The decorative concept of this butter-tub is very similar to the Christie-Miller Service in its richness of decoration (see the two butter-tubs from the service sold by Sotheby's on 7th July 1970, lots 21 and 22). It is not currently known which service the present lot was made for, but it appears to be from a service that, in common with the Christie-Miller Service, has decoration which comprehensively covers the surface.

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