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Lot Essay
These unusual and exquisite vases epitomise the European fascination with Japanese style porcelain, at its height in the first half of the 18th century. Both the decoration and complex, hard to fire shape were based on Japanese originals, and were perfectly suited for royal presentation. Vases marked with the blue ‘AR’ for Augustus Rex were either intended for Augustus the Strong’s personal collection – many similarly decorated vases were displayed as part of garnitures on Chimney pieces or brackets at the Japanese Palace – or were sent by the Elector King as diplomatic gifts to European Royal Courts and important nobility.
The present pair vases may have originally formed part of a garniture of perhaps five, or even more vases, intended for display on a mantelpiece. From the second half of the 17th century, garnitures with earthenware bodies (often blue and white Dutch Delftware) became popular amongst the European aristocracy. The discovery of the recipe for hard-paste porcelain at Meissen in around 1710 allowed the creative workers there to create large-scale decorative vases in imitation of similar coveted wares from Japan and China, which were imported at great cost. By 1731, Johann Gregorius Höroldt had developed 16 new enamel colours, recording their recipes in a book in which he also sketched designs to be used as templates for his decorating schemes. The white glazed ground of the current vases reflects the technological advances at Meissen during the period of manufacture. The workers were now able to produce a paste that more closely mimicked that of Japanese and Chinese porcelain.
The present vases take both their form and decoration from Japanese originals. The hexagonal panelled form imitates a Japanese vase type known in England as the ‘Hampton Court type’, as the earliest reference to the Japanese vases in a European collection was recorded in the Kensington Palace inventories from 1697 and 1699 ‘One jar and cover of six squares’ and ‘a colored jar and cover of six squares’, associated with the Japanese vase at Hampton Court.
Augustus the Strong had collected more than twenty thousand pieces of Japanese and Chinese porcelain for his Japanese Palace by 1719, including twelve Japanese hexagonal vases. He ordered twenty-six copies of these Japanese originals from the Meissen factory. The ‘free formed’ shape of these, repeated for the present vases was particularly difficult to achieve, often failing in the firing.
By 1730, when the Japanese Palace was extended to make room for Augustus’s commissions from the Meissen porcelain factory, the palace included an entire room for the ‘lion porcelain’ (the ‘Gelber Loewe’ service) decorated with a ‘lion’ tiger and bamboo, clearly a motif of significance to the king. The ‘Gelber Loewe’ service incorporates a tiger wrapped around bamboo, rather than a tiger with tail raised, watching a bird in flight, as on the present vases, but the origins of the motifs are the same, first created at the Sakaida factory in Arita, Japan. The lion-tiger was a noble beast, intended to convey the prowess of the king, and perhaps also seen as an auspicious symbol.
Other vases of this form and decoration are rare. One vase of a slightly larger size and with blue crossed swords mark is held in The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (acc. No. 48.1468). Another vase of the same size and bearing the AR mark was sold Sotheby’s London, 26 November 1985, lot 286, and was subsequently published in Ulrich Pietsch, Frühes Meissener Porzellan, Kostbarkeeiten aus deutschen Privatsammlungen, Munich 1997, pp.172-173, no. 139. A Japanese bowl decorated with a similar scheme of tiger and flowering prunus is illustrated by John Ayers, Oliver Impey and JV.G. Mallet in Porcelain for Palaces, The Fashion for Japan in Europe: 1650-1750, London 1990, p.128-129, no. 92.
The present pair vases may have originally formed part of a garniture of perhaps five, or even more vases, intended for display on a mantelpiece. From the second half of the 17th century, garnitures with earthenware bodies (often blue and white Dutch Delftware) became popular amongst the European aristocracy. The discovery of the recipe for hard-paste porcelain at Meissen in around 1710 allowed the creative workers there to create large-scale decorative vases in imitation of similar coveted wares from Japan and China, which were imported at great cost. By 1731, Johann Gregorius Höroldt had developed 16 new enamel colours, recording their recipes in a book in which he also sketched designs to be used as templates for his decorating schemes. The white glazed ground of the current vases reflects the technological advances at Meissen during the period of manufacture. The workers were now able to produce a paste that more closely mimicked that of Japanese and Chinese porcelain.
The present vases take both their form and decoration from Japanese originals. The hexagonal panelled form imitates a Japanese vase type known in England as the ‘Hampton Court type’, as the earliest reference to the Japanese vases in a European collection was recorded in the Kensington Palace inventories from 1697 and 1699 ‘One jar and cover of six squares’ and ‘a colored jar and cover of six squares’, associated with the Japanese vase at Hampton Court.
Augustus the Strong had collected more than twenty thousand pieces of Japanese and Chinese porcelain for his Japanese Palace by 1719, including twelve Japanese hexagonal vases. He ordered twenty-six copies of these Japanese originals from the Meissen factory. The ‘free formed’ shape of these, repeated for the present vases was particularly difficult to achieve, often failing in the firing.
By 1730, when the Japanese Palace was extended to make room for Augustus’s commissions from the Meissen porcelain factory, the palace included an entire room for the ‘lion porcelain’ (the ‘Gelber Loewe’ service) decorated with a ‘lion’ tiger and bamboo, clearly a motif of significance to the king. The ‘Gelber Loewe’ service incorporates a tiger wrapped around bamboo, rather than a tiger with tail raised, watching a bird in flight, as on the present vases, but the origins of the motifs are the same, first created at the Sakaida factory in Arita, Japan. The lion-tiger was a noble beast, intended to convey the prowess of the king, and perhaps also seen as an auspicious symbol.
Other vases of this form and decoration are rare. One vase of a slightly larger size and with blue crossed swords mark is held in The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (acc. No. 48.1468). Another vase of the same size and bearing the AR mark was sold Sotheby’s London, 26 November 1985, lot 286, and was subsequently published in Ulrich Pietsch, Frühes Meissener Porzellan, Kostbarkeeiten aus deutschen Privatsammlungen, Munich 1997, pp.172-173, no. 139. A Japanese bowl decorated with a similar scheme of tiger and flowering prunus is illustrated by John Ayers, Oliver Impey and JV.G. Mallet in Porcelain for Palaces, The Fashion for Japan in Europe: 1650-1750, London 1990, p.128-129, no. 92.