An early Meissen white porcelain octagonal sugar box and cover, circa 1715

Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, London, 8 July 1969, lot 98 (bought by Dr Torre);

A Bern private collection, Koller, Zürich, 28 March 2011, lot 1557;

Acquired at the above sale.

Eight sided sugar boxes are among the earliest wares produced at Meissen, initially in Böttger stoneware, and feature in the early inventory of the factory in 1711, see Claus Boltz, ‘Formen des Böttgersteinzeugs im Jahre 1711’, Mitteilungsblatt der Keramikfreunde der Schweiz, no. 96, 1982. A similarly shaped box in stoneware, moulded in low-relief with a leaf band at the shoulder of the cover is in the Porzellansammlung Dresden, illustrated in Rolf Sonnemann and Eberhard Wachtler, Johann Friedrich Böttger zum 300. Geburtstag, exh. cat., Dresden, 1982, pl. I/65.

A further example of this particular form with the same high-relief moulding, though decorated with gilt arabesques, was sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz, Cologne, Sammlung einer alten rheinischen Familie, 3-5 May 1934, lot 19.