Meissen cup with saucer, painted by Johann Joseph Hackl with etched silver Chinese figures on a coffee brown groun

Siegfried Ducret resolved the signature in his early essay (op. cit.). He correctly identified it with the sculptor, 'Hofbossierer' and ceramist Joseph Hackl. His signature "JH" in ligature is identical to the later factory marks of the faience manufactories of Göggingen and Friedberg, where he was later director and manufacturer. He was the central figure of the Augsburg faience scene of the 1740s and 50s (see Riolini-Unger and Schandelmaier in Keramos 191 / 2006 pp. 3-88, cf. the marks pp. 44 f.). When he married in 1743, he acquired citizenship of the city of Augsburg. This Augsburg background to Hackl's life, known from the faience literature, led Ducret to assume that he had been a Hausmaler in Augsburg in the Seuter workshop in 1737. This assumption has never been convincing and has not been followed up. It does not fit in with the early dates of Hackl's life, who according to Thieme Becker (vol. 15 / 1992) was born around 1710 (little is known about Hackl's pre-Augsburg period, Thieme Becker). The trained sculptor worked in Prague, where Gaetano Chiaveri discovered him and brought him to Dresden in 1737 (!) "to work on the construction of the Catholic Court Church. In 1741, he was appointed court sculptor in Dresden. Together with Joseph Deibel, he produced the interior of the church" (Wikipedia 24/09/2023). In 1741 he was appointed to the electoral 'Oberbauamt'. When he married a woman from Augsburg in 1743, he moved the centre of his life to the Bavarian metropolis of arts and crafts. In Dresden, he had the opportunity to obtain white porcelain from Meissen in order to decorate it by himself. For his work - as can be seen in our small bowl - he was also able to rely on Meissen models, such as the brown-glazed tea caddy with silver Chinese from the Franz and Margarethe Oppenheimer Collection (no. 315; cat. Rijksmuseum no. 129), which was recently auctioned in New York (Sotheby's 14/09/2021 no. 18, approx. EUR 63,000). Only a few pieces with Hackl's Hausmalerei have been preserved, all of them very similar and with the same borders, but with both silver and gold Chinese figures: - William King, Deputy Keeper in the British Museum, formerly the Arthur Hirst Collection, published in "The Documentary Continental Ceramics from The British Museum." (The International Ceramics Fair London 1985 no. 21, gold Chinese, inv. no. 1942,0409.1) - Ringier Collection (Christie's 11.12.2007 no. 48, silver Chinese without saucer) - Christie's 20.05.1991 no. 155, gold Chinese, very similar to ours = 1131 Lempertz 19/05/2019 no. 71