The coffee pot is made in the stoneware body produced by the Meissen factory from its foundation in 1710 until 1713. Both this stoneware and the porcelain that succeeded it were developed by the alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger. Böttger was arrested by Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and ordered first to transmute gold, and then to make porcelain. In 1707 he succeeded in making a red stoneware similar to the popular Chinese redwares from Yixing, and in the following year he became the first European to make ‘true’ or ‘hard-paste’ porcelain of the East Asian type. Most Böttger stonewares – described in factory documents as ‘red porcelain’ or ‘Jasper porcelain’ – were made in plaster moulds, often with relief decoration, as here.

Many of the vessel shapes derive from European metalwork, and the design of these has traditionally been attributed to the Dresden court goldsmith Johann Jakob Irminger, who is known to have made design models in hammered copper for the factory. This coffee pot, however, has much in common with English Huguenot silver, and may combine elements from French silver prototypes, with a spout and scrolled strut derived from Yixing stoneware and Chinese porcelain respectively.

Much Böttger stoneware was left plain, but a great deal was decorated using a variety of techniques. Black glazed wares were among the very first Meissen productions displayed and offered for sale in 1710 at the Leipzig Easter Fair, held to promote Saxony’s industries and luxury goods, when they were described in the Leipzig Gazette as ‘lacquered like the most beautiful Japanese products.’ The lacquer painting is traditionally attributed to the workshop of the Dresden court lacquerer Martin Schnell, who is known to have worked for the Meissen factory between 1711 and 1715. Very little of the lacquer decoration on Böttger stoneware can be attributed to Schnell himself, however, and the style and quality of the work varies enormously. The decoration here imitates Japanese maki-e (literally ‘sprinkled picture’) lacquer. At least some of the designs on these black-glazed wares were based on European ‘Japanning’ pattern books and Chinese woodcuts.

Decoration of Böttger blackwares ceased in 1713, leaving very large stocks of undecorated wares at the factory. There is growing evidence that the very earliest Meissen wares were primarily intended for display. Certainly, the unsold ‘useful’ Böttger’s stonewares transferred from Meissen to Augustus the Strong’s ‘Japanese Palace’ in 1733 would have been set upon brackets in tiered ornamental displays rather than put to practical use.