Jim Peake
Head of Department
Lot 19
A very rare Vienna enamelled acrostic Ranftbecher by Anton Kothgasser, circa 1820
23 June 2021, 10:30 BST
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £14,000 inc. premium
Looking for a similar item?
Our British Ceramics specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistAsk about this lot
A very rare Vienna enamelled acrostic Ranftbecher by Anton Kothgasser, circa 1820
Of typical waisted form, finely painted in Transparentmalerei with a continuous band of colourful garden flowers on a white ground within simple borders to the rim, above a geometric trellis design incorporating florets in shades of blue, the distinctive foot or Ranft cut with palisade flutes and gilded, the underside of the base cut with a sixteen-pointed star stained in amber, 12cm high
Footnotes
The initials of the flowers of Blumenbordüren beakers such as this were used to spell the Christian name of a loved one, see Rudolf von Strasser, Die Einschreibebüchlein des Wiener Glas- und Porzellanmalers Anton Kothgasser (1977), p.39 and Paul von Lichtenberg, Mohn & Kothgasser (2009), pp.474-8. This beaker spells the name 'MARIE' using Mohn (poppy), Aurikel (auricula), Rose (rose), Iris (iris) and Heckenrose (dog rose) for E. A virtually identical acrostic beaker by Kothgasser from the Müller-Mezin Collection was sold by Christie's on 18 November 2008, lot 159 and is illustrated by Christian Kuhn in the Lichtenstein Museum exhibition catalogue, Glanz und Farbe (2010), no.4.34. Kuhn notes that this was likely to have been a one-off piece and that no other examples with a blue geometric trellis design were recorded at the time of writing.
