Sophie von der Goltz
Head of Sale
Lot 104*
A highly important gold-mounted Du Paquier tureen, cover and stand, 1735-40
6 December 2018, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £536,750 inc. premium
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Sebastian Kuhn
Department Director
Nette Megens
Head of Department, Director
A highly important gold-mounted Du Paquier tureen, cover and stand, 1735-40
Each painted with elaborate patterns of scroll and strapwork enclosing fan-shaped motifs and flanked by flower baskets, radiating from a central chrysanthemum head on the stand, inside bowl and inside cover, the sides of the bowl and the cover with similar decoration incorporating trellis panels, below a band of baldachins and scrollwork on the bowl, the inside rim of the bowl with a band of trellis reserved with chrysanthemum flowers and panels with a fan flanked by scrollwork, the reverse of the stand with a band of scroll- and strapwork panels enclosing fan and floral motifs, the bowl and cover each mounted in gold with a cage of pierced scroll- and strapwork enclosing, on the bowl, two cartouches chased in low relief with putti and sea creatures, and on the cover two similar scenes alternating with architectural vignettes, the mounts on the rims of the bowl and stand including panels of pierced scroll- and strapwork to the corners, the bowl with two scroll handles, the base of the finial chased with trellis panels alternating with tiny landscape vignettes, the stand: 25.3cm across; the bowl and cover: 19cm across handles and 13cm high (the finial a later replacement, some rubbing to enamels inside bowl, one handle loose from mount at base (3)
Footnotes
Provenance:
By repute, a gift from the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI, to one of the Imperial Princesses, probably Maria Theresia, and used as a Holy Water Stoop in the Hofburgkapelle in Vienna;
By 1804 (or 1814), in the possession of a noble family;
W. Gloose, Altona (by 1929);
With Kunstantiquar Wilhelm Gloose, Berlin;
Dr. Albert Kocher Collection, Bern (acquired from the above in 1935);
The collection of a European Nobleman;
Thence by descent to the present owner
Literature:
Max Sauerlandt, Edelmetallfassungen in der Keramik (1929), pls. 35 and 36;
John Hayward, Viennese Porcelain of the Du Paquier Period (1952), fig, 31b (the bowl and cover only);
M. Chilton/C. Lehner-Jobst (eds.), Fired by Passion (2009), cat. no. 336, fig. 3:21
Gold-mounted Du Paquier porcelain for the Imperial Court of Charles VI
This is the most elaborate and sumptuous of the few examples of gold-mounted Du Paquier porcelain to survive, of which Meredith Chilton has noted: "[they] are the ultimate expression of the value that was placed on porcelain as a rare material of great desireablity" (Chilton/Lehner-Jobst, vol. I, p. 245). Most, if not all, are thought to have been gifts from the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI.
Of these, most were probably gifts to the Russian royal family:
- a tureen, cover and stand with jewelled gold mounts incorporating cameos still in the Hermitage Museum (Chilton/Lehner-Jobst, cat. no. 335)
- a beaker on a gold salver with pierced mount in the Hermitage Museum (Chilton/Lehner-Jobst, cat. no. 87)
- a gaming box with jewelled gold mounts formerly in the Hermitage and now in the Art Institute of Chicago (Chilton/Lehner-Jobst, cat. no. 383)
- a gold-mounted perfume set in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, also formerly in the Hermitage.
Otherwise, only a gold-mounted small tray with a porcelain and a glass beaker in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (Chilton/Lehner-Jobst, cat. no. 87), and a set of three gold-mounted flasks in a lacquer case, in the possesion of the Habsburg family until 1918 (sold in these Rooms, 17 June 2015, lot 60, Chilton/Lehner-Jobst, cat. no. 124) are recorded in the literature. Two examples of Asian porcelain with similar mounts are recorded in the literature: a Japanese Imari covered bowl, circa 1680-1720, in the Munich Residence (F. Ulrichs, Die ostasiatische Porzellansammlung der Wittelsbacher in der Residenz München (2005), p. 68 (the mounts tentatively attributed to Augsburg); and a Chinese famille rose covered bowl with pierced gold mounts and very similar handles to the present lot, sold by Ball & Graupe, Berlin, 15 March 1933, lot 65.
Earlier scholars such as E.W. Braun, Max Sauerlandt and Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld were all of the opinion that such finely pierced gold mounts were made in Vienna for the Court, and that this explained the absence of goldsmith's or assay marks.
Dr. Albert Kocher and Professor Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld
The Swiss collector, Dr. Albert Kocher (1872-1941), much of whose collection is now in the Historisches Museum, Bern, was one of the great collectors of 18th-century porcelain. The quality of his collection is comparable to his great contemporaries, Hermine Feist, Catalina von Pannwitz and Fritz Mannheimer, in no small part thanks to the advice of the Director of the Schlossmuseum in Berlin, the renowned art-historian and porcelain scholar, Professor Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1877-1945). Kocher placed great value on Schnorr von Carolsfeld's advice and consulted him before making any important acquisitions. This exceptional Du Paquier tureen was brought to Kocher's attention by Schnorr von Carolsfeld in January 1935, when the latter sent him Max Sauerlandt's 1929 book on mounted ceramics in which it is illustrated. In his accompanying note, Schnorr von Carolsfeld onserved: 'Das Ganze ein wahres Bijou, ein Museumsstück ersten Ranges, das eigentlich nach Wien gehörte. Wir liebäuglen schon seit einiger Zeit mit der Terrine, aber nur platonisch!" [The whole is a real jewel, a museum piece of the first rank, that actually belongs in Vienna. We have been admiring the tureen for some time, but just platonically!].
