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Lot Essay
A du Paquier writing-set, which may have been decorated in black, is recorded among the possessions of Queen Sophia Dorothea of Prussia (the daughter of George I of England). A 1738 inventory records Ein Schreib Zeug, bestehend aus einem Tintenfaß, Streu-Büchse und Glocke1 (a writing set, consisting of an inkpot, pounce pot, and bell) in the Dutch Kitchen (Holländische Küche) of her Schloss Monbijou. The writing set is the last entry on the list, following 20 consecutive items decorated in ‘white and black’, and although the inventory does not specify whether the last item is also decorated in this manner, it is reasonable to assume that this was probably the case. Ghenete Zelleke, citing Braun, notes that Emperor Charles VI ‘is said to have given’ Vienna porcelain decorated in black and gold to Sophia Dorothea.2
Writing-sets must have been one of the manufactory’s most expensive objects to produce due to their complexity (clock-cases were even more complex). The candleholder on this set was detachable so that excess wax could be removed easily. A writing-set of very similar form,3 complete with a figural candle-holder, is illustrated by Elisabeth Sturm-Bednarczyk, Claudius Innocentius du Paquier, Wiener Porzellan der Frühzeit 1718-1744, Vienna, 1994, p. 126, no. 146, and again in ‘The Early Viennese Porcelain of Claudius Innocentius du Paquier’ in artibus et historiae, an art anthology, Vienna-Kraków, 2005, No. 52 (XXVI), p. 181, no. 26.
1. The inventory published by Thomas Kemper in 2005 is cited by Ghenete Zelleke, ‘Gifts, Diplomacy and Foreign Trade: du Paquier Porcelain Abroad’ in Fired by Passion, Stuttgart, 2009, Vol. 2, pp. 1000, and p. 1107, note 53.
2. Edmund Wilhelm Braun, ‘Die Fabrik als Privatanstalt 1718-1744’ in Folnesics and Braun, Geschichte der K. K. Wiener Porzellan-Manufaktur, 1907, p. 10.
3. Three writing-sets of different form are illustrated in Fired by Passion, Stuttgart, 2009, Vol. 3, p. 1318, nos. 403, 404 and 405.