Important double-handled Meissen écuelle with saucer
Meissen, c. 1722 (before the introduction of the swords mark); painted with early European landscape scenes, the gilt cartouches by George Funcke; height: 11.6 cm (with cover); diameter of saucer: 17.9 cm.
Provenance: Lempertz, Cologne, 19 November 2010, no. 15; The Antique Porcelain Company (Collection of Hanns and Elisabeth Weinberg), Sotheby’s, New York, 11 November 2006, no. 672; William Blackburn Collection, according to APC archive (KFS, 39/1957, pp. 33 ff.).
Early Böttger porcelain with excellent Saxon landscape decoration, produced in the very early phase of Meissen porcelain painting. The decoration can be dated to around 1722:
- before the introduction of the crossed-swords mark (from 1723 onward);
- before the chinoiserie decoration (also from 1723 onward);
- without gold painting inside the cartouches (this technique was not mastered by Höroldt and his workshop before spring 1726; cf. Boltz, Keramos 48/1995, p. 23);
- cartouche borders painted in two tones of iron-red, without purple.
The gilt borders are from the workshop of George Funcke, who carried out all gilding work for the Meissen manufactory in his Dresden workshop until 1726 (Boltz, ibid.).
The landscape scenes within the cartouches form an independent group within the very earliest Meissen service decoration, prior to the emergence of chinoiseries. Comparable examples are found in the Carabelli Collection (pp. 52 f.), Wark I (p. 108), Marouf (no. 99, teapot with K.P.F. mark = 1722), and the Margarethe Oppenheim Collection (no. 797).
The attribution of this painting was long disputed and was traditionally given to Johann Georg Mehlhorn, which Pietsch has rightly questioned (Carabelli no. 12; Marouf p. 91). Mehlhorn and his eldest sons worked as blue painters (Rückert, Biographische Daten, pp. 176 f.); the eldest son, Johann Gottlieb, was in fact not yet active in Meissen at the time (Rückert, ibid.). Pietsch has therefore attributed these Saxon landscapes to Johann George Heintze – Höroldt’s most talented apprentice, who was in his second year of training in 1722/23. It is likely that Höroldt himself was still involved in the execution of these early works.
