Meissen, circa 1735
Tureen: Ø 23 cm, 18 cm high, underglaze blue crossed swords mark with „S“ (see Barsewisch No. 45)
Présentoir: Ø 34 cm, underglaze blue crossed swords mark with „K•“ (see Barsewisch No. 143) for Johann David Kretzschmar (1697–1765), specialist in high-quality underglaze blue painting
Provenance: Alexis Gregory, New York
The model of the round tureen „without the rooster handle“ or with „pine cone finial,“ painted in „blue and red with gold,“ was created between mid-1729 and April 1730 based on an order from the Parisian merchant Rudolph Lemaire, as Julia Weber documents in detail through inventory entries from that period (Vol. II, p. 87). As Lemaire requested, the tureen and its decoration are modeled after a Japanese original from the royal collection in the Japanese Palace. Julia Weber holds a different view (ibid.) but apparently overlooked two examples in the first Johanneum auction. On October 8, 1919, two tureens (with rooster handles) of similar form and decoration with the palace number „N-357+“ were offered under the numbers 496 and 497 (T. 39, see image below, the tureens right and left bottom).
Höroldt created two Meissen models of such a tureen with the earlier palace number “N-11+” (“+” means Japanese Porcelain) as part of Lemaire’s commission, intended for his painters: “2 round tureens with lids, blue, red, and gold No. 11” (Boltz 1980 p. 79). The Japanese original was delivered from the Japanese Palace to the manufactory on December 24, 1729:
At the beginning of April 1731—after the affair involving Count Hoym and the merchant Lemaire was exposed—the following Meissen tureens were then seized from Count Hoym’s residence (Boltz 1980, p. 43):
And from Lemaire’s stock (ibid., p. 46):
Of the seized Meissen tureens marked with overglaze swords (Weber, Vol. II, p. 88), the 1770 inventory still listed, under section D, item number 15 (Boltz 1996, p. 72):
Of the nine confiscated tureens with “pine cones,” in 1770:
as well as
Our tureen matches the measurements of type N-18 exactly, with the notable difference that our piece still includes the présentoir.
The Meissen manufactory learned from Lemaire and incorporated the model into its repertoire, as evidenced by our tureen with the underglaze blue crossed swords mark and painter’s mark “S” (with the présentoir marked “K•”). The rarity of a complete set with a stand, already noted at the time, remains to this day. A full set comprising a tureen with a lid and a matching présentoir is extremely rare. Claus Boltz (in Keramos 178/2002, p. 95) already lamented that the manufactory often only released partially finished products in the case of these tureens—meaning tureens without their corresponding stands.
Only one other complete set with the same dimensions is known to us, which was in our possession in 2018:
The Schneider Collection (Weber Vol. II, No. 68) includes only a tureen with a rooster of our format (without underplate):
The Arnhold Collection (No. 229) contains an présentoir (Ø 42.5 cm), also marked with “K•”:
A matching tureen was auctioned at Christie’s on July 2, 1990 (No. 71).
Even the tureen from a private collection illustrated by Weber (Fig. 15, p. 89) lacks its underplate:
