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E
& H MANNERS
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SOLD TO J.PAUL GETTY MUSEUM
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A SHEPHERD, DERBY
Modelled by J.J. Spängler
Circa 1795
Incised Crown, crossed
batons and D mark, No. 395
a triangle for the
repairer Joseph Hill
32.0 cm. (12 1
/2
in.) high
The attribution to Spängler has been convincingly argued by Timothy
Clifford 1 against the earlier accepted opinion that it
was the work of William Coffee. Spängler came from Switzerland where
his father was the technical director of the Zurich porcelain factory.
Little is known of his early years but he would have come under the influence
of the Swiss neo-classical sculptor Johann Valentin Sonnenschein who modelled
for the factory. Spängler’s career at Derby ended in debts, prison
and dismissal, nothing is known of his life after this.
The shepherd was made
as a companion to Spängler’s figure of a shepherdess and is loosely
based on the Belvedere Antinous
2 . 1
Timothy Clifford, ‘J.J. Spängler a virtuoso Swiss modeller at Derby’,
The Connoisseur, June 1978.
2 F. Haskell and N.
Penny, Taste and the Antique (1981), fig. 73.
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AN ALCORA FAIENCE WALL PLAQUE
Spain, Circa 1755-176594 cm. (37 in.) high
48 cm. (18 1 /2 in.) wide
The elaborate rococo frame bears the inscription in the lower cartouche:
Injuriam proximi Moises
perferre non potest,
quare Aegyptium propria
manu necat 1
The central oval is painted with the combined stories of ‘Moses slaying the
Egyptian’ and ‘Moses with the daughters of Reuel, priest of Midian’,
(Exodus 2 vv. 11-17), this derives from a painting by Jacopo Amigoni which was
engraved by Josef Wagner and published in Venice 2 . Jacopo Amigoni worked in Italy,
Germany and England before being called to Spain in 1747 to become First Painter to King
Ferdinand VI. The factory was founded at Valencia by the Conde d’Aranda in 1726 and
after his death in 1749 continued under the proprietorship of his son Don Pedro Pablo, the
Spanish Ambassador to France from c.1774-1784. The wealth and artistic aspirations of the
Aranda family allowed the creation of some of the finest European faience of the 18 th
century. An academy was established there where apprentices had drawing lessons
three times a week with the intention of producing decorators of the highest quality.
1 ‘Moses could not endure an injury to one of his own
people, so he slew the Egyptian with his own hand’
2 An example of the engraving is in the papers of Aubrey J.Toppin held
by the English Ceramic Circle and published in their Transactions (1948),
Vol. 2, no. 10, Pl. XCII c.
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The literature on Alcora is
confusing and unreliable concerning dating.
A pair of smaller plaques from the
Museo de Ceramica in Barcelona that are of very much the same type but painted with putti in blue bear a
date that has been published as 1735 3 but in fact appears to be
1755. A plaque of the same form as the Barcelona example, but painted with the same scene of Moses slaying the
Egyptian, is in the Musée National de Céramique, Sèvres. This form is the largest of
the rococo plaques made at Alcora. Another plaque from the same series depicting Jacob and
Rachel at the well has recently been acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum. Two examples painted
with scenes of David and Abigail, also after Amigoni, are known. One, from the C.W.
Reynolds collection, sold by Christie’s in 1871 4
, Chaffers states 5 ‘ Mr
Reynolds recently obtained from a palace in Spain twenty four plaques with frames of
rococo scrolls and masks in relief, the medallions and frames in one piece, some of large size….. these are
now dispersed’, the two smaller oval examples in the Victoria and Albert Museum 6 come from this source. Another is in the
Instituto Valencia de Don Juan in Madrid 7 .3 El esplendor de Alcora, cerámica del s XVIII (1994), no. 433.
4 Christie, Manson & Woods, May 29 1871, lot 72, illustrated in William
Chaffers, The
Keramic Gallery,
(1872) Vol 1, Pl. LI, no. 96.
5 William Chaffers, Marks
and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain (1874), pp. 199-200.
6 These will very shortly be published by Anthony Ray in his forthcoming Spanish Pottery
1248-1898,
Catalogue of the collection of the
Victoria and Albert Museum.
7 Illustrated, Conde de Casal, Historia de la Cerámica de Alcora (1945), Pl. LXI. |
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A MEISSEN PUNCH BOWL,
COVER AND A DISH
Circa 1765-1770The bowl and dish with crossed swords and dot
marks,
The bowl with Pressnummer 10
The dish with Pressnummer 34 and
Incised Dreher’s mark of four
short lines to the footrim.
29.8 cm. (11 1 /2 in.) diameter of bowl
27.0 cm. (10 1 /2 in.) height of bowl and cover
38.7 cm. (15 1 /2 in.) diameter of dish
The bowl has the following inscription
in gothic script within a berried wreath:
Es Lebe die Hochlöbliche Punch
Gesellschafft
(Long Live the Highly Esteemed Punch
Society)
Germany in the 18 th century had numerous Masonic, literary and
political societies 1 both secret and overt. The
Punch Society depicted here appears to be essentially of a convivial nature. The members are each given
their rank in full but are personally identified only by their initials perhaps suggesting
a degree of secrecy. The members are seated around the table on a terrace between
open doors. At one end is the Praesident and Vice Praesident, followed by other members
of the Society. An Assessor is a legal rank that was also given to a suitably qualified civil
servant or mining official. Further down the table sits the Punch Rath (punch adviser), beside the Cassirer (treasurer), appropriately depicted
in front of a plate of coins. The Erster
Assessor (first assessor) is a dwarf dressed in Polish costume, which seems to have been a
convention at this period 2 .Particularly
significant is the Lachs fänger or
Salmon catcher who is given the single initial K and is shown having just thrown a six
with the dice. He also appears on the cover where the sort of ‘salmon’ that he
is after is revealed, salmon with its pink succulent flesh is most apt, Graf von S.
looks on. The other scene on the cover has unmistakable phallic connotations amongst
references to drinking smoking and gambling. The Archivarius (archivist)
has the word Närschgenung emanating
from his mouth in mirror writing, which loosely translates as ‘foolish enough’
in Saxon dialect. A servant is bringing in another punch bowl from the right. A punch bowl does not
normally have a stand and so the dish although clearly made for the same society was
intended to stand alone, differences in the scrolls and the floral sprays suggest that it
was not made at precisely the same time as the bowl. A possible explanation is that the
dish was made shortly after the bowl to include new or junior members of the Society,
amongst the assessors on the dish is J.B.j, the j indicating jünger, perhaps
the son of the Cassirer, J.B. On the
table one can see lemons, a lemon squeezer and what appears to be tobacco which clearly
plays an important part in the meetings of the society. One member raises his glass saying
‘Ach! Wie süße’ (Oh! How
sweet), why his
title should be given as Assessore dolce remains
a mystery.A number of Meissen Punch bowls exist that are decorated with satirical scenes
after Hogarth engravings 3 , however
this appears to be the only recorded example that depicts an actual society. The Society
shown includes only a small number of members that are identified as being aristocratic by the prefix von. Since only a society of considerable wealth would have been able
to commission such a bowl this might reflect the rise to prominence of a wealthy merchant or bourgeois
class after the Seven Years War in the Saxon cities such as Leipzig or Chemnitz.
Frustratingly it has not been possible at the time of going to press
to identify the Society or its members. |
1 A Meissen cream-pot and
stand with the same cartouche and similar painting of a tower is illustrated by R.
Ruckert, Meissener Porzellan (Munich,
1966) no. 420.
2 Antoine d’Albis and T.M. Clarke,
‘Vincennes Porcelain for Orry de Fulvy’, Apollo, June 1989.
3 Tamara Preaud and Antoine
d’Albis, La Porcelaine de
Vincennes (1991), p. 71, no. 4, and
‘Les elements de datation des porcelaines
de Vincennes avant 1753’, The French porcelain Society,1986.
4 S.Eriksen and G. de Bellaigue, Sèvres Porcelain (1987) p. 54.A VINCENNES CUP AND SAUCER
(Gobelet Bouillard et Soucoupe)
1745-1749
Crossed swords and fleur-de-lys
Mark in blue enamel
The cup 6.6 cm.(2 1 /2 in.) high
The saucer 12.3 cm. (4 7 /8 in.) diam.
The painting of the imaginary harbour scenes in simple gilt cartouches follows very
accurately Meissen wares of circa 1735 1 whilst the flower painting retains a distinctly
French character.
The curious mark of the crossed swords with the fleur-de-lys appears on a small group of
early wares that sometimes include the letters L, O and F, which have been identified by
Antoine d’Albis and T.M. Clarke 2 as the initials of Louis Orry de Fulvy, the brother
of the Minister of Finance, who was the majority shareholder of the factory until his
death in 1751. The use of the Meissen marks perhaps relates to the early intention of the
factory to compete with and imitate its great Saxon rival.
A date of 1749-1750 has been persuasively argued for the comparable example now at
Sèvres, Musée National de Céramique 3 , based on the purchase in 1748 of the secret of
gilding from the Benedictine monk Hypolite Lefaure. The royal privileges granted in 1745
included the monopoly of decorating porcelain with gold 4 although it is uncertain if much
was accomplished at this early date but the flower painting and the slightly experimental
nature of the porcelain could suggest an earlier date. |
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A MAIOLICA SHALLOW BOWL ON LOW
FOOT
FAENZA, CASA PIROTA WORKSHOP
Circa 1525
25.6 cm. (10 1 /8
in.) diam.
The shape corresponds approximately to Poole shape 78 1 . Painted with the judgement of Paris and with the inscription:
‘LA ISTORIA DE PARIS E.
V…NA’ 2
The painting is closely related to that
on one of the only two known marked pieces from the Casa Pirota workshop which is now in the Musée National de
Céramique at Sèvres and was published by John Mallet 3 .
The Sèvres dish, dated 1525, is painted with a scene from the story of Joseph set in a
characteristic landscape with upswept hills in the distance, details such as the
distinctive delineation of the feet suggest that they are both by the same hand. Another
somewhat similar dish painted with the fall of Phaeton is dated 1523 4 ;
perhaps also from the same group is the documentary dish in the Louvre painted with the
Martyrdom of a Saint, inscribed on the reverse ‘F.A.T.O. IN FAVENZA 1523’ 5
Within the foot there is a mark of an R
crossed with an S, C.D.E. Fortnum 6 noted a similar mark but did not know the piece on
which it occurred.
1 Julia E. Poole, Italian maiolica and incised slipware in the
Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge, 1995)
2 Damage to the rim at the right hand
end of the scroll has probably caused the loss of one letter
after the V.
3 J.V.G. Mallet, ‘Au Musée de
Céramique a Sèvres: Maioliques Historiées provenant de deux ateliers de la renaissance’, La revue du Louvre et des Musées de France, No. 1-1996
4 C. Join-Dieterle, Musée du Petit Palais, Catalogue de céramiques I (Paris, 1984) no. 32
5 J. Giacomotti, Catalogue des majoliques des musées nationaux (Paris, 1974), no. 345
6 C.D.E. Fortnum, Maiolica (1896) p. 11, no. 31 |
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A MEISSEN BÖTTGER PORCELAIN
BEAKER
DECORATED BY IGNAZ PREISSLER
Circa 1725
11.5 cm. (4 1
/2
in.) high
Painted in schwarzlot
and gilt highlights with a battle scene
between European
and Turkish cavalry adapted from an engraving of Georg Phillip Rugendas
1 . The decoration is close to a series of
wares by Preissler commemorating incidents from The War of the Spanish
Succession 2 ,
scenes alluding to the victory over the Turks and the relief of the Siege
of Vienna in 1683 were equally popular.
1 Cf. The engraving
illustrated by Alfred Ziffer, Nymphenburger
Porzellan, Bäuml Collection
(Stuttgart, 1997) p.
200. 2 Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, ‘Repraesentatio
Belli, ob successionem in Regno Hispanico…: A Tea Service and Garniture by the Schwarzlot decorator
Ignaz Preissler’, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal 24,
1989.
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A CHANTILLY BEAKER
Circa 1730-1735
Mark of a hunting horn in red
6.3 cm. (2 1 /2
in.) high
7.7 cm. (3 in.) diam.
This rare design appears on a saucer in the Ashmolean Museum 1 and
on a bowl from the Halinbourg collection 2 ,
the shape derives from a Japanese original 3 . The clarity of
delineation and brilliance of enamelling are characteristic of the early wares inspired by the
Japanese porcelain in the collection of the Prince de Condé.1 Aileen Dawson, Eighteenth Century French porcelain in the
Ashmolean Museum (1996) no. 15
2 Collection Frédéric Halinbourg, sold Hotel Drouot 22 May 1913, lot 113
3 An example in the Rijksmuseum,
illustrated, M. Shono, Japanisches
Aritaporzellan (Munich, 1973) Pl. 98 |
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank all those who have helped with this catalogue and in particular
those scholars who have given their time so generously: Claus Boltz, Maureen
Cassidy-Geiger, Jan Daniel van Dam, Aileen Dawson, Timothy Forrest, Anton Gabszewicz, Dr
Thomas Kemper, John Mallet, David Peters, Dr Ulrich Pietsch, Julia Poole, Anthony Ray, Dr
Birgit Sander, Rosalind Savill, David Tulissio, Mavis Watney, John Whitehead, Timothy
Wilson, Louis Woodford, Hilary Young and for a constant stream of inspiration and advice
Robert Williams. Also Ivor Kerslake of the British Museum Photographic service and
Douglas Howden for their photography and Peter Hutchison for the catalogue
production.
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