The small, round teapot with overhead handle in Schwartz Porcelain is a rarity of the first order. It is the only example of this model known to date, despite the extensive research that has been carried out on Schwartz Porcelain.
Neither the 18th-century production and inventory records nor Maureen Cassidy-Geiger’s comprehensive survey of all known Böttger stonewares could identify any other example. Cassidy-Geiger published the teapot in the supplement to the major 2003/04 exhibition “Schwartz Porcelain. Die Leidenschaft für Lack und ihre Wirkung auf das europäische Porzellan”, under form no. 42 (supplement, p. 44).
This rarity is further confirmed by the extensive surviving archival material. Among the sources of the period, there is only one reference that can be securely and unequivocally connected with our teapot. Boltz published it in 2000 in Keramos 167/168, p. 122.
After Böttger’s death on 13 March 1719, four inventories were drawn up. They recorded the large holdings of Böttger stonewares and porcelains in Meissen (“Vorderstube auf dem Schloß”), Dresden, Leipzig, and in “Böttgers Behauszung”. Boltz brought these four partial inventories together and arranged them thematically by models. In the group of “(Ober)henkel/überhenklig Teekannen” he lists a total of five teapots of this type (ibid., p. 122, no. 13.7): only one black “glazed” (= SG) example and one un-fired example in the raw state made of Böttger stoneware, the other three being of porcelain.
This means that at the time of Böttger’s death only a single black-glazed Böttger stoneware teapot with overhead handle remained in the four Böttger inventories. This may well have been our teapot, although it cannot be stated with absolute certainty. We do not know how many such teapots were produced between August 1711 — the date of the inventory of 3 August of that year, see below — and 1713, when the production of Böttger stoneware was largely discontinued in favour of white porcelain. Nor do we know whether further examples had been sold before Böttger’s death. What is certain is that, if any were produced at all, their number must have been very small. This is suggested by all the records and inventories of the period.
The rarity of the teapot with overhead handle is also reflected in the furnishing of the Royal Residence Palace in Warsaw in 1713. Among the more than 500 porcelains sent from Dresden to Warsaw — including 125 pieces of Schwartz Porcelain, an unusually high proportion — there was not a single overhead-handled model in Schwartz Porcelain for Augustus the Strong. This too suggests that, apart from our unique example, no further piece of this type was apparently available in stock.
The teapot still recorded in 1719 must, however, have been sold or given away before 1733. At the time of the final settlement of Böttger’s estate and the regulation of the so-called “Böttger credit system” in 1733, it was no longer present (Boltz, Keramos 153/1996, p. 111). It therefore could not, like other remaining Böttger stonewares and porcelains, be incorporated into the Royal Collection and transferred to the Japanese Palace. For this reason, no teapot with overhead handle in Schwartz Porcelain bearing the palace mark is known.
Dating: 1711 to 1713
The small teapot with overhead handle in Schwartz Porcelain was already made in Meissen and no longer in Dresden. The manufactory had been transferred to Meissen on 6 June 1710. The teapot was not yet part of the range announced by the manufactory in the Leipziger Zeitung of 14 May 1710, on the occasion of its first participation in the Leipzig Easter Fair in May 1710 (Walcha 1973, p. 144, fn. 19).
In the inventory of the Meissen production site of 3 August 1711, however, our teapot model already appears: “40 Ru(n)de Thee Krügel mit einem Oberhenkel (gebrannt)” (Boltz, KFS 96/1982, p. 20, form no. 19). These pieces, however, were all made of red, unglazed Böttger stoneware. They were not yet “schwarz glasuret”. Such a black glaze was specifically noted in the inventories, even when glazing was only planned (cf. ibid., p. 24, no. 171). This is understandable, since Schwartz Porcelain has a different body composition and was fired at lower temperatures.
The teapot was also not yet present in the inventory of the Dresden sales warehouse of 28 May 1711 (Boltz, ibid.). It may therefore be assumed that the model in red Böttger stoneware was first introduced into the production programme of the young manufactory between May and August 1711. When it was also adopted into the range of Schwartz Porcelain cannot be determined precisely. The period can, however, be narrowed down to the time between August 1711 and the end of Böttger stoneware production.
This end is generally placed around 1713. In that year Böttger succeeded in producing white porcelain, including the glaze, on a manufactory scale (Rückert 1966, p. 13; Krieger, Keramos 167–168, p. 158). The immediate and strong demand for white porcelain displaced Böttger stoneware. The rapidly declining demand for stoneware could moreover be met from the large remaining stock of around 3,000 pieces. Stoneware production was therefore generally discontinued and resumed only briefly, if at all, in response to special wishes of the court.
Against this background, it can be ruled out that the little-demanded black-glazed teapots, with their particular body composition, were still being produced after 1713. It cannot be entirely excluded, however, that Martin Schnell or his workshop took already fired pieces of Schwartz Porcelain from the warehouse and decorated them only later with gold and lacquer painting. Schnell ceased his work for the Meissen manufactory in 1715 and subsequently concentrated on lacquer furniture. Given the enormous scale of the furnishing projects entrusted to him, however, this remains a rather theoretical assumption.
All things considered, we assume that our round, black-glazed teapot with overhead handle was made between 1711 and 1713. The decoration in the workshop of the court lacquerer Martin Schnell is also likely to have been carried out during this period. Remarkable is the high quality of the cold-applied lacquer colours. They have therefore survived in far better than average condition. This applies both to the freshness and intensity of the colours and to their adhesion. Unlike most black-glazed Böttger stonewares, only a few areas of lacquer have flaked off. In our view, this also supports an attribution of the lacquer decoration to Martin Schnell. On the connection between lacquer quality, the level of painting, and durability, cf. Menzhausen 1982, p. 93, as well as our expertise on the Schwartz Porcelain tankard.
Form
The striking form of the teapot derives from Chinese and Japanese prototypes. This is true of most of the approximately thirty known teapot forms from the Böttger period. Corresponding models were available to Irminger in the Royal Collections.
Comparable East Asian models include:
- the three Chinese overhead-handled vessels from the late 16th and early 17th centuries in the Topkapi Museum, cat. vol. II, nos. 1401, 1403 and 1404, described there as wine pots;
- the black-glazed teapot with gold decoration from the Kangxi period, around 1710, from the Jie Rui Tang Collection, cat. 2017, no. 107.
The arched-handle form remained in use for a long time. This is shown, for example, by the slightly larger porcelain version published by Pietsch in 1996, p. 80, fig. 20, together with its Arita prototype from the Royal Collection. The model was also successful on the Paris luxury market, as demonstrated by the Meissen example illustrated there with the overglaze swords mark, made for the merchant Lemaire. As already mentioned, the overhead-handled teapot form existed somewhat earlier in red Böttger stoneware. It is already recorded in the inventory of 1711. This type, too, is rare. Four examples are known, all polished:
- Schloss Friedenstein Gotha, cat. 2011, no. 33, height 13.5 cm, formerly Porzellansammlung Zwinger, dated 1710–1713; =anniversary catalogue on Böttger: Die Erfindung des Europäischen Porzellans, 1982, fig. 82 centre, dated 1710–1715; = second anniversary catalogue on Böttger: Frühzeit und Gegenwart, 1982, fig. I 8;
- The Wilanów Palace Museum, cat. 2013, no. 26, without cover, height 14.6 cm, dated 1710–1715, Dresden or Meissen;
- Wark Collection, Pietsch 2011, no. 9, dated 1710–1715, height 14 cm, polished, cut with floral decoration and facetted;
- Staatliche Porzellanmanufaktur Meissen GmbH, display room since April 2000, cited after Barbara Szelegejd, Wilanów catalogue, p. 185.
The earlier dating to 1710 mentioned above is not further substantiated. It is presumably based on the fact that teapot model no. 19, a “Thee Krügerl mit Oberhenkel”, is already mentioned in the inventory of August 1711. It therefore cannot be excluded that the model was produced as early as 1710, possibly even still in Dresden. The Schwartz Porcelain version, however, is absent from the 1711 inventory, as discussed above.
