Bronze Age Gold from Wales

Teapot and cover, hard-paste porcelain, near white body, greenish translucency and colourless glaze; teapot stands on a shallow foot rim; globular body, upcurving spout with a large mask terminal, loop handle with foliate ends, shallow domed cover with a pagoda-shaped finial; decorated on each side with an oval reserve painted in red, green, blue, brown and lilac enamels, one with three half-length Chinoiserie figures presenting a dish of fruit to a seated figure enthroned below a hanging, and accompanied by two black attendants leading a camel, and the other with two further half-length chinoiserie figures offering a dish and a basket of fruit to a man and woman standing behind a table covered with dishes and vessels, a wall and a palm tree bearing a pineapple beyond, both set against a cloudy sky; both reserves in a frame of red and gold scrolls and purple lustre panels; the body, spout and handle painted with sprays of Indianische Blumen, and the body with scattered insects; the neck embellished with a border of gold scrollwork below a gold band; a further gold band to the foot, spout end and cover rim; the cover also painted with further Indianische Blumen and the finial parcel gilt.

The shape is one of the earliest Meissen forms, and is found in Böttger stoneware from around 1710. It has a silver prototype and can be attributed to Johann Jacob Irminger (1634-1724), the Court goldsmith responsible for the factory's designs from 1710. The figure decoration is taken from sheet 87 of the Schulz Codex, the collection of designs assembled by Höroldt and others between 1720 and 1730. Sheets 87 and 88 are unusual, as they comprise scenes in circular reserves, rather than the long friezes of figures found in most of the Codex, and are thought to be early.