BERLIN, CIRCA 1830

The vase offered here belongs to a group produced in Berlin, most probably around or soon after 1840. Distinguished by lacquered decoration on a white-glazed ground, with the blue underglaze 'coin' mark to the underside, these faience wares were inspired by and intended to imitate Chinese porcelain. Although Germany had no direct contact with the Orient, exotic lacquer and porcelain fascinated collectors here as elsewhere, and it was at the Prussian and Saxon courts that particularly fine techniques were developed for japanning on ceramics. Professor Samuel Wittmer has proposed that since no records of such vases exist before the 1840's, while several suddenly appear in purchase ledgers of the Prussian Royal family in the 1840's, they were produced to cater for an elite group of collectors seeking objects in lacquer and porcelain, both of which had become highly fashionable again.
Related examples are at Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin, the Neues Palais in Potsdam and the Lacquer Museum in Münster.
A pair of closely related vases was sold anonymously Christie's, London, 7 July 2005, lot 349.