Tankard
ca. 1715 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Imitating the plain white porcelain made at Dehua in China, this rare tankard is of the earliest type of German porcelain, made by the arcanist Johann Friedrich Böttger at Meissen. Living as a virtual prisoner in his laboratory within the fortress of his master Augustus the Strong of Saxony, Böttger's painstaking experiments eventually paid off when he finally succeeded in making porcelain in about 1708.
The shapes of the earliest porcelain pieces are attributed to the court silversmith J.J. Irminger who also used similar relief decoration on his gold and silver work. The same type of decoration is found on the even earlier red stoneware pieces Böttger developed prior to discovering the formula for making porcelain.
This type of mug or tankard was probably used for drinking beer rather than the tea and coffee we would mugs for today.
The shapes of the earliest porcelain pieces are attributed to the court silversmith J.J. Irminger who also used similar relief decoration on his gold and silver work. The same type of decoration is found on the even earlier red stoneware pieces Böttger developed prior to discovering the formula for making porcelain.
This type of mug or tankard was probably used for drinking beer rather than the tea and coffee we would mugs for today.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Hard-paste porcelain (Böttger porcelain) with applied reliefs |
| Brief description | Tankard of white hard-paste porcelain (Böttger porcelain), applied with a acanthus leaf sprig, made at the Meissen porcelain factory, Germany, ca. 1715. |
| Physical description | Tankard of white hard-paste porcelain (Böttger porcelain), of cylindrical shape, slightly tapering towards the base, applied with a simple scroll handle and a decorative sprig in the form of a scrolling acanthus leaf, a small spot of underglaze blue visible on the handle. Unglazed under the flat base. |
| Dimensions |
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| Style | |
| Credit line | Given by the request and from the Collection of Mrs Amélie Mavrogordato |
| Subject depicted | |
| Summary | Imitating the plain white porcelain made at Dehua in China, this rare tankard is of the earliest type of German porcelain, made by the arcanist Johann Friedrich Böttger at Meissen. Living as a virtual prisoner in his laboratory within the fortress of his master Augustus the Strong of Saxony, Böttger's painstaking experiments eventually paid off when he finally succeeded in making porcelain in about 1708. The shapes of the earliest porcelain pieces are attributed to the court silversmith J.J. Irminger who also used similar relief decoration on his gold and silver work. The same type of decoration is found on the even earlier red stoneware pieces Böttger developed prior to discovering the formula for making porcelain. This type of mug or tankard was probably used for drinking beer rather than the tea and coffee we would mugs for today. |
| Bibliographic reference | Blaauwen, Abraham L. den. Meissen Porcelain in the Rijksmusuem, Amsterdam: Waanders Publishers for the Rijksmusuem, 2000, no. 13, p. 34. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | C.136-1945 |
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| Record created | April 2, 2009 |
| Record URL |
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