Sammlung Oppenheimer | Important Meissen Porcelain

A very rare Meissen hexagonal tea canister and cover, Circa 1730-35

Guaranteed Property

Auction Closed

September 14, 05:54 PM GMT

Estimate

8,000 - 12,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

A very rare Meissen hexagonal tea canister and cover, Circa 1730-35

of baluster form, each side painted in Chinoiserie style in a vivid palette and Böttger lustre with various insects, floral, figural. or bird subjects within moulded green-ground diaper pattern borders, the flattened cylindrical cover similarly decorated and edged in lustre, crossed swords mark in blue enamel.

Height: 4⅜ in.

11.1 cm

Margarethe (née Knapp, 1878-1949) and Dr. Franz (1871-1950) Oppenheimer, Berlin & Vienna (no. 327 in red);

Dr. Fritz Mannheimer (1890-1939), Amsterdam & Paris, inv. no. Por. 271 (acquired between 1936 and 1939);

Dienststelle Mühlmann, The Hague (acquired from the Estate of the above in 1941 on behalf of the Sonderauftrag Linz for the proposed Führermuseum);

On deposit at Kloster Stift Hohenfurth;

On deposit at Salzbergwerk Bad Aussee;

Recovered from the above by Allied Monuments Officers and transferred to the Central Collecting Point Munich (MCCP inv. no. 1571/26);

Repatriated from the above to Holland between 1945 and 1949;

Loaned by the Dutch State to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam in 1952 and transferred to the museum in 1960;

Restituted by the above to the heirs of Margarethe and Franz Oppenheimer in 2021

Abraham L. den Blaauwen, Meissen porcelain in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2000, p. 292, cat. no. 211

No other pieces of this highly experimental pattern were known to den Blaauwen at the time of the publication of the Rijksmuseum collection catalogue. A similar treatment of birds on branches, plants and lustred rockwork is seen on two Meissen teapots, one of which was sold at Sotheby's London, June 20, 2000, lot 23 and recently at Bonhams London, December 6, 2018, lot 253; the other was in the collection of Baron von Born, Budapest, sold, Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus, Berlin, December 4, 1929, lot 9. A hexagonal tea canister from the same service as one of these teapots was sold at Sotheby's October 21, 1975, lot 115; and again Christie's Geneva, May 13, 1985, lot 157. The present lot is engraved with a cursive letter D, which possibly represents an inventory mark.

The Oppenheimer Collection originally included nineteen hexagonal tea canisters, on which the full breadth of Chinoiserie decoration could be seen.