Vase and cover, hard-paste porcelain, painted in enamels and gilded, made by Meissen porcelain factory, Germany, ca. 1734.

Vase and cover of hard-paste porcelain. Painted in enamel colours and gold with large-scale Indian flowers, rocks, a bird and a butterfly.

Purchased with the assistance of the Murray Bequest

This information is taken from Maureen Cassidy-Geiger's essay in the Arnhold Collection catalogue, see below.
Augustus the Strong (Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, 1670-1733) had his magnificent collection of Asian Ceramics installed in his Dutch Palace and subsequently renamed it the Japanese Palace (Japanisches Palais), the name it retains today. In about 1727 the rooms were dismantled and the ceramics stored in the basement in order for three additional wings to be added to the building. Thousands of pieces of Meissen porcelain were ordered for the new state apartments on the main floor of the palace. These included table wares, vases and other display pieces intended to decorate the walls of the rooms, resulting in many new models, including new ranges of vases with innovative ground colours and decoration. When Augustus the Strong died in 1733, the plans for the interior decoration of the Palace were halted, resulting in a large number of pieces left in various stages of production. By 1738 the project was abandoned, the completed orders were delivered to the Japanese Palace and the rest were put to other uses. Some large Meissen animals and mirrors were installed, but the majority of the porcelain and furnishings remained in storage until the late nineteenth century....
'The vases of various shapes and sizes, the large sculptures, tablewares, and the clock case were invented for display in the Japanese Palace or another formal setting. The models after Japanese prototypes, notably the bottle-shaped vases, were introduced around 1730 for the French market but served double duty as Japanese Palace models when painted to conform to the decoration of the state apartments. Much attention is given to the attribution of miniature painting on Meissen porcelain, while the artistry of the large-scale flower paintings is largely overlooked. Comparison of flower and bird paintings in underglaze blue and overglaze enamels may yet yield signature styles even if the name of the artist is unknown. More than a practitioner of a single chinoiserie style, Johann Gregorius Höroldt must be considered the originator of multiple factory styles of painting we traditionally assign to other artists, for example Johann Ehrenfried Stadler or Johann Christop Horn....'

Further information on the Japanese Palace is provided by Ulrich Pietsch in 'The Triumph of the Blue Swords' catalogue (see below). In his introductory essay, 'Making a Brilliant Entrance' Pietsch states that all work was suspended on the Palace on the death of Augustus II as his son, Augustus III had to dedicate enormous sums to his election as King of Poland, mainly needed for bribes to Polish magnates and Catholic clergy. Nevertheless, in 1734, the year of the coronation, large deliveries were made from the Meissen factory to the Palace and over 400 animal sculptures, in part life-sized, that August II had ordered were gradually delivered.
The story of how this type of Japanese style of furnishing vases originated is taken up by Pietsch on p. 24 in the section 'Oriental Prototypes'. The Parisian marchand-mercier Rodolphe Lemaire came into contact with the manufactory through the Saxon ambassador to France, Carl Heinrich, Earl of Hoym. With Hoym's support he had numerous Meissen items copied between 1729-1731, based on examples of the Japanese manufacture Sakaida Kakiemon in the royal collection. Some were unmarked, others marked only overglaze in blue with the crossed swords which could be easily removed with nitric acid. The pieces were then sold as Japanese originals. When the scheme was discovered, Hoym was imprisioned and Lemaire ejected from Saxony. The porcelain completed for Lemaire was transferred to the King's private collection.

Attribution from the manuscript catalogue dates from about 1970 and was compiled by William Hutton of the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio.

Augustus the Strong (Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, 1670-1733) was the owner of the Meissen porcelain factory which, thanks to the efforts of his alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger, in about 1710 became the first porcelain factory in Europe to make true porcelain of the Asian type in imitation of Chinese and Japanese originals. Until then Asian porcelain had been imported to Europe at great expense. This vase, the decoration of which probably derives from Chinese wood-block prints and/or Japanese Kakiemon porcelain, would originally have been one of a matching pair in a garniture of vases designed to be displayed together. The 'AR' mark on its base stands for Augustus Rex and indicates that it was originally intended for display in a royal residence or for use by the Elector as a personal or diplomatic gift. As Augustus II died in 1733, it is possible the mark relates to his son Augustus III, as many such items were delivered at the time of his coronation in 1734.

Vases of this type were were decorated to furnish Augustus the Strong's Japanese Palace, a pleasure palace in Dresden. The decoration of plants and birds was known at the time as 'Indianische blumen' or Indian flowers. Given that the style has similarities to Chinese and Japanese prototypes rather than Indian, the confusion of terms used to describe such decoration reveals that to most Europeans then, China, India and Japan, were all equally remote and foreign, and the adjectives Chinese, Japanese and Indian were interchangeable. The fabulous white porcelain vases decorated in bright colours and bold designs imported from East Asia embodied all the exotic appeal and fabled wealth of those lands, and by imitating them the Saxon king appropriated for himself the glamour and renown of the China and Japan.

C.574&A-1922