A RARE EUROPEAN SUBJECT PUNCH BOWL

FIRST HALF 18TH CENTURY

Details

A RARE EUROPEAN SUBJECT PUNCH BOWL
FIRST HALF 18TH CENTURY
Each side with a cloud-shaped panel painted in famille rose enamels with woodcutters sawing lumber supported on trestles as two women sit and watch, a stack of boards to one side, in the background three small figures, one possibly fishing, and a townscape visible in the distance, all reserved on a ground of large iron-red and gilt peony and lily blooms growing on underglaze blue and gilt vine, the sides with smaller panels showing famille rose blooms growing from rocks with birds hovering above, the interior with a large spray of iron-red peony buds and blooms on cobalt blue stems bearing curling leaves picked out in blue and shades of iron-red
16¼ in. (41.2 cm.) diameter

Provenance

The Benjamin F. Edwards III Collection.

Literature

Fuchs and Howard, Made in China, p. 131, no. 82.

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Lot Essay

This subject seems to be unrecorded on Chinese export porcelain, though it has been observed on small Chinese tea pieces in Meissen style. The combination of the German-style scene with classic 1720's Chinese Imari decoration is unusual, and may reflect a relatively early date for Meissen-inspired Chinese porcelain. Port scenes showing merchants and workers were part of the Meissen porcelain painters' repertoire from as early as the mid-1720's, and continued through the 1740's. By 1745 the Meissen factory collection of European prints to use as inspiration for porcelain painting numbered more than 5,000, including subjects like animals, birds, hunting, battlefields, Watteau and Hogarth pictures, and the famous series of miners. See A.L. den Blaauwen, Meissen Porcelain in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2000, pp. 297-311. This subject may actually represent shipbuilding, and thus be directly related to the many Meissen port scenes showing merchants engaged in the lucrative shipping trade.

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