FINE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART
With the arrival of Johann Joachim Kändler at the Meissen manufactory came the advent of successful figural design. He was tutored under Kirchner, whose creations have an altogether Chinese feel about them, and worked in collaboration with him on the immense project of the animals made for the Japanese palace. Kändler enlivened the manufactory’s capability with a host of important models of birds and beasts in his quest to create and draw out complex living forms from the porcelain. This, together with the influence of Kirchner, can be clearly seen in the important pair of the Lion and Lioness (No. 8.)
The mute Swans or Cygnus Olor (No. 9), were a collaborative effort between Kändler and Peter Reincke recorded during the year 1747. Swans had figured greatly in Kändler’s career, for he had designed the Swan Service for Graf Heinrich Von Bruhl. Their partnership is also to be found in the magnificent pair of parrots (No.10) which are so unusual as they have their correct ornithological colouring and the Horses (No. 11), whose bursting energy can almost be felt just as the grooms struggle to control them.
Finally within this section is The Meissen Böttger stoneware model of the American Bald Eagle (No.14) dating from between 1924 and 1933 it was a model conceived by Paul Walther a genius in the powerful imagery and stately scale so vivid of the period within Europe at the time.
The enchanting soft paste of the French wares is seen in the Vincennes Coffee cup and saucer (No. 13) coming from the manufactory under the patronage of Louis XV and who can resist the playful trinkets of the animal snuff and patch boxes, (Nos. 19) which conjure up images of elegant Ladies and Gentlemen of the decadent French Court at Versailles.
The dinner table was where the appetite for conceits of the natural form was at its most vociferous, with ceramic manufactories making free and very ingenious use of all manner of natural forms, especially in the shapes of the varied tureen forms and also within the general decoration of the table from course to course. The pigeon tureens (Nos 21) and (22) are some of the rarest objects of this type to have survived and the plasticity of the pottery body can be admired to great effect particularly on the heads of these extraordinary birds, both are the work of the greatest modeller in this field Paul Antoine Hannong and (No.21) bears his signature.
In England during this time particular reference must be made to the Chelsea manufactory started by the silversmith from Liège Nicholas Sprimont who with his partner Charles Gouyn tempted the London society with ambitious natural forms which perhaps in the case of the Goat and Bee jug (No.31) might hide a rather intriguing secret, see the footnote within the catalogue. Further inspiration for design was on hand from many sources, the most important being from the Meissen collection of Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams, former Ambassador to the Court of Augustus the Strong. Many parts of the collection were made available and borrowed by the Chelsea manufactory through the good oYces of Sir Everard Faulkner, secretary to the Duke of Cumberland and friend of both Sprimont and Hanbury-Williams.
The very rare Chelsea owl (No.32) indicates the importance felt within the sculptural tradition within the very earliest of the models in England. It has a haunting quality of exceptional power and the sculptor, whose identity is sadly unknown to us, has captured the pure nature of wisdom and contemplation, which has been linked to this creature since Antiquity.
Landscape decoration in colours and in puce carmine was developed by Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale, born in 1734 the son of an Irish landowner from County Antrim, he is one of the few principal painters of early English porcelain known to us today. Trained as a miniaturist he continued to exhibit his fine art at the Society of Artists as well as painting at Chelsea. He is particularly well known for the best of the Fable decoration, which emanated from Chelsea during the late raised and early red anchor period. This decoration proved a significant business success for the factory as the subjects are derived from designs engraved by Francis Barlow, published in 1687 and then re worked by Croxall in 1722, thus the images would have been familiar to adults and children alike within the mid eighteenth century. The rare Chelsea lobed dish (No.36) which depicts the Fable of the Hunting Dog and the Lap Dog, shows the very individual features employed by him on both porcelain and miniatures, for example the detailed scraffito in the grasses and the crosshatching to create high levels of detail around forms that he wishes our eye to concentrate on, such as the animals. The colours, detail and composition of this scene are undoubtedly his peak of attainment on porcelain. His style is now fully developed and reminds us of his work yet to come on Worcester porcelain at the end of the 1760s, see pages 92–103.