Bronze Age Gold from Wales

Soup tureen, hard-paste porcelain, standing on a slightly flaring foot-rim, globular body with flaring lip-rim, to either side of the body twin curved scrolled handles with foliate moulding to the lower terminals, high domed cover, to the top of the cover a finial in the form of a figure seated upon a cushion and holding a bowl; the exterior upper body of the tureen, the interior of the tureen and the upper sides of the cover decorated with scattered deutsche blumen in pink, iron-red, mauve and green enamels, laub-und bandelwerk borders around the lower exterior body of the tureen and the lower sides of the cover, narrow dentil borders in red around the foot-rim and exterior lip-rim of the tureen and around the rim of the cover, gilt bands around the foot-rim and the exterior body of the tureen and around the sides of the cover, the handles edged in gilt and with a stylized leaf decoration in red, the finial covered all over in gilt, a metallic edge to the lip-rim of the tureen. Firing cracks to the base of the tureen.

After Meissen, the Vienna porcelain factory was the second in Europe to produce 'true' hard-paste porcelain. This piece is a good example of the heavy, symmetrical forms produced during the Du Paquier period.