A very rare Du Paquier ollio pot and cover circa 1720-25

of deep U-form with a flared, barbed rim and raised on three feet of bundled flower stems with moulded flower terminals, each side moulded with strap- and scrollwork panels enclosing flowers, heightened in colourful enamels and gilding, flanked by moulded flower heads and birds, and two smaller panels enclosing a bird entwined with flowers between trellis panels, all enclosed by densely painted flowers, the rim and the barbed square-section handles painted with iron-red scrollwork, the inner rim with a foliate border, the inside and the underside of the cover with large flower sprays, the cover similarly moulded and painted with a blue foliate border around the finial

Two similarly decorated examples of this form are recorded in the literature, which both differ from the present lot in that the narrow bird panel is in the centre, flanked by the scroll- and strapwork panels, and the feet of all three are different. The first, in the Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna, is raised on scroll feet, while the second, in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence, stands on three mask feet (published by Wilhelm Mrazek/Waltraud Neuwirth, Wiener Porzellan 1718-1864, no.36, and Sheila K. Tabakoff, Le Porcellane di Vienna a Palazzo Pitti, no.1, respectively). The example in Florence is recorded in the inventories between 1816 and 1877 together with a pair of related stands, now in the Quirinale Palace in Rome (Tabakoff, op.cit., p.47, published by Alessandra Ghidoli, Le Vaselle Il patrimonio artistico del Quirinale, no.1).

Two other examples of this form are recorded with the same arrangement of a scroll- and strapwork panel flanked by narrower bird panels, both of which are raised on three mask feet. An unpainted example is in the Museum of Applied Art in Brno (published by Jana Novotna, Moravska galerie v Brne. Sbirky uziteho umeni, Brno 1973, pp.22-23, ill.13); another example in the Decorative Arts Museum in Budapest has the relief decoration heightened in gilding (published by Klara Tasnadi-Marik, Wiener Porcellain, Budapest 1971, pp.12-13 and 49, ill.1).