Partridge tureen on flower plate

This trompe-l’œil partridge tureen, depicting a brooding hen upon a nest, was produced at the faience manufactory of Zerbst. The factory was founded in 1721 by Prince Johann August of Anhalt-Zerbst in his residence city.

Its production was extensive and varied; its output, of “outstanding importance,” has nevertheless never received the recognition it deserves (Heiland 1925, p. 75). Among the documented models were expressly “partridges on flower plates,” as recorded in the mould inventory of 1753–1763 (Riesebieter 1921, p. 220).

The factory mark “Z”, combined with the painter’s mark “W”, appears frequently on tureens in particular. Riesebieter first published, in 1910, a large oval tureen from the collection of a Zerbst family bearing this mark (Riesebieter 1910, pp. 712f., fig. 3), and in 1921 (p. 225) he noted another similar tureen with the same mark from his own collection and one now in the Oldenburg State Museum (illustrated in Zerbst und Jever, no. 64; Oldenburg catalogue no. 289 and colour plate p. 179; Hüseler vol. III, M18 Zif. 6).

In connection with these tureens, Riesebieter (loc. cit.) draws attention to a distinctive feature of the painter Wagner:

“Since small details often offer excellent points of identification, one should note the interior drawing of the relief leaves: on one side the veins are formed by three (in our example several) strokes, while those on the other are drawn in a branching manner; instead of this branching hatching an even simpler internal drawing without branches may also occur.”

These characteristically bipartite, relief-moulded leaves appear very typically on the present partridge tureen as well.

Another striking feature of this tureen is its fine, glossy, almost porcelain-like glaze. The painter’s mark corresponds to Johann Heinrich Wagner, active in Zerbst from 1748 to 1767.

Together with the model inventory of 1753–1763, this suggests a date in the manufactory’s flourishing period, approx. 1758–1768, under the joint direction of the painter and works-master Johann Peter Fertsch and the merchant Karl Gotthelf Ittig (Riesebieter 1921, p. 219).

Tureens in the form of partridges were popular in the 18th century and were produced by several manufactories, including: Strasbourg, Höchst, Hannoversch-Münden, Proskau, and Magdeburg-Guischard.

A form-identical counterpart to the present tureen, with strikingly similar decoration, was formerly in a major German faience collection whose core derived from the Otto Blohm Collection, with a focus on Hannoversch-Münden and Magdeburg (Christie’s, 3 June 1996, nos. 173–303, here no. 205). That example is marked “W / 3”, likewise by the painter Wagner (Christie’s dates it 1750–1760).

Another comparable piece is held by the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg (Rudi 1998, no. 11), though painted in a less fine and assured hand. It bears the painter’s mark “M”. On p. 81 the catalogue reproduces an 18th-century recipe for partridge tureens from Zedler’s Universal-Lexicon of 1741 (vol. 30, col. 1253).