A Meissen Kakiemon Saucer Dish, Circa 1730

Lot Closed

October 17, 04:05 PM GMT

Estimate

2,000 - 3,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

A Meissen Kakiemon Saucer Dish, Circa 1730

decorated in a characteristic palette of enamels and gilding on the front with a boy standing, carrying a basket of flowers on his back, and a second boy seated, holding a fan, brown-edged rim, crossed swords mark in underglaze-blue, engraved Japanese Palace Inventory number N=355-/W

diameter 5 7/8 in., 15 cm

together with a Kakiemon teabowl, painted with a phoenix bird and flowering chrysanthemum branches growing from green banded hedges, the interior with a flower sprig, brown-edged rim, crossed swords mark in underglaze-blue;

and a Meissen teabowl, painted on the front and back with either a figure with cattle, or a figures crossing a bridge, within Böttger lustre, iron-red, puce and gilt scrollwork-edged shaped quatrefoil cartouches and scattered insects and sprigs, gilt scrollwork border to the interior, caduceus mark in underglaze-blue. 3 pieces.

The Royal Collections of Saxony, Japanese Palace, Dresden.

The 1770 Inventory of the Japanese Palace, Dresden lists:

“Fünf Stück Coffeé Tassen, mit braunen Rändern und Pagoden gehmahlt, 2 1/4. Zoll tief, 3 1/2. Zoll in Diam: nebst Fünf darzu gehörigen Unterschalen, 1 ½ Zoo tief, 6 ¼ Zoll in Diam: No. 355”, [Five coffee cups, painted with brown borders and pagodas… along with five associated saucers…],

Claus Boltz, ‘Japanisches Palais- Inventar 1770 und Turmzimmer- Inventar 1769’, Keramos, No. 153, 1996, p. 58.

Meissen bowls and saucers of this type, bearing enamelled crossed swords or underglaze blue caduceus marks, were first intended for the Paris merchant Rodolph Lemaire, who intended to sell them as Japanese originals. The majority were confiscated by Augustus the Strong and integrated into his collection at the Japanese Palace.

Of the five recorded under the inventory number 355, a bowl and saucer is now in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, acc. no. 17&A-1908, illustrated in Masako Shono, Japanisches Arita Porzellan im sogenannten 'Kakiemon Stil' als Vorbild für die Meißener Porzellanmanufaktur, 1973, ill. 132;

a second bowl and saucer sold at Sotheby’s London, November 27, 1979, lot 7;

a third bowl and saucer sold at Christie’s Geneva, November 10, 1986, lot 136;

a fourth bowl and saucer, or one of the abovementioned, sold at Bonhams London, May 14, 2008, lot 52;

and a single bowl, probably belonging to the present lot, sold at Christie’s London, July 15, 2006, lot 81.

Sotheby's Scientific Research department used noninvasive XRF for this lot to screen the green enamel for chromium, which was not detected.