CIRCA 1725-30, THE COVERS PROBABLY CONTEMPORARY, THE SHOULDER MOUNTS LATE 19TH CENTURY

A set of three flasks of exactly the same form are discussed and illustrated by Meredith Chilton et al., Fired by Passion, Vienna Baroque Porcelain of Claudius Innocentius du Paquier (Stuttgart, 2009), Vol. II, pp. 710 - 714, fig. 8:32. The flasks are housed in a Japanese lacquer box and the inclusion of an agate mixing-bowl suggests that the flasks were intended to store tea, reiterated by an inscription on the underside of the mixing-bowl which reads: De la cassette de thé de l'Impératrice Marie Thérèse. However, it is not certain if the inscription is contemporary with the contents of the box, and there is a possibility that the Japanese lacquer box itself could have been adapted to house the contents at a later date. The original function of the flasks consequently still remains uncertain, although it is highly probable that they were used to store tea.

The mounts of the present flasks appear to be replacements for earlier ones, and the holes at the base of the flutes suggest that they would have had filigree mounts extending down the flutes, similar to the three flasks mentioned above. The mounts on the present flasks are also related to those on four flasks from a toilet-set (with a du Paquier casket), formerly in the Hermitage, Redlich and Blumka Collections and now in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich. For an illustration of this toilet-set, see J.F. Hayward, Viennese Porcelain of the du Paquier Period (London, 1952), pl. 54 and Elisabeth Sturm-Bednarczyk, Claudius Innocentius du Paquier (Vienna, 1994), pp. 72-73.