With its exotic figures and wildly asymmetric scrollwork and design, this inkstand is a striking example of chinoiserie in the rococo style fashionable in mid-eighteenth-century Europe. Like many artisans in the porcelain industry, its creator, the modeller Johann Wilhelm Lanz (active 1750-1761), worked at a number of factories. He was first chief modeller at the Strasbourg porcelain factory of Paul-Anton Hannong, where this design was first put into production. However, Hannong was soon forced to cease making porcelain at Strasbourg by the Vincennes factory, which held a monopoly to manufacture certain types of porcelain on French soil. Both men then crossed over the nearby border to Frankenthal in Germany, where Hannong established a factory in 1755. In this year he was awarded a privilege (patent) to make porcelain by the Elector Palatinate, who purchased the factory outright in 1762.