A Meissen porcelain Hausmaler coffee pot and cover with silver-gilt mounts, the porcelain circa 1720, the decoration slightly later, the mounts Elias Adam, Augsburg

The Property of R. C. Stewart, Esq., Sotheby’s, London, 20 October 1964, lot 82;

Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, London, 18 November 1969, lot 7;

Anonymous sale, Christie's, Geneva, 14 November 1983, lot 183;

With Andreina Torre, Zurich;

Anonymous sale, Christie’s, London, 8 July 2002, lot 92.

Siegfried Ducret, Meissner Porzellan bemalt in Augsburg, Band I, Brunswick, 1971, pp. 182-183, abbs. 196-97.

Ducret, ibid, notes the similarities between the gilt Chinoiseries seen on the present lot and the painted figures of a blue-ground Augustus Rex vase, signed and dated 1727 by Höroldt, retained in the Porzellansammlung, Dresden (p. 146, abb. 124). The figures seen on the vase appear to derive from slightly earlier etchings by Höroldt himself, dated 1726.

Elias Adam, Silversmith

Elias Adam became a master in Augsburg in 1703, and spent the first part of his career specializing in mounting in silver and silver-gilt various precious materials: carved agate, ruby glass, painted enamels, carved ivory, even ostrich shells. Around 1720 he was mounting Augsburg-decorated faience, including pieces from the workshop of Bartholomaus Seuter. This connection may have brought him to the attention of the Dresden court, who started having Adam mount their new precious material, the “white gold” of Meissen, around 1722 – the same year the factory began commissioning the Seuter workshop to decorate its white porcelain with gilded decoration. For the rest of the 1720s, Adam’s workshop production was almost exclusively mounts for Meissen porcelain, particularly coffee pots and tankards. On the latter form, he displayed a sophisticated French-influenced Régence style, with chased interlace strapwork on matt grounds. Adam finished not just Augsburg-decorated pieces but also factory-decorated items, and mounted more Meissen than any other silversmith of the period. His work for Dresden tapered off after 1729, when the factory began sending less to Augsburg for gilding, but the backstock of locally-decorated pieces kept him occupied, and he continued to supply some mounts, and spoons for cased sets, through the 1730s.