Frederick Augustus, colloquially known as Augustus the Strong (1670-1733) succeeded his brother John George IV in 1694 as Elector of Saxony and soon put himself forward for election as King of Poland following the death of John Sobieski in 1696. The ambitious Augustus was crowned at Cracow in 1697 and set up court in the Saxon city of Dresden.

A great lover of art, Augustus was famously enamored with the exceedingly expensive, delicate and beautiful porcelain produced by China and Japan. The domestic production of these high-quality wares became a fixation for the status-obsessed King who saw its appeal both as a lucrative fund for his wars and the ‘soft power’ it would convey to his contemporaries.

Dutch tin-glazed earthenware was widely popular across Europe at the time with its successful marketing strategy of copying Asian designs; and as such, representatives of the region would gift these ‘Delftwares’ as luxury items produced to flatter its recipient. The blazon depicted on the present lot shows the shield of the Marshalcy over quarterings for Saxony, Thuringia, Magdeburg and Landsberg, paying homage to Augustus’s Germanic roots, as well as his appointment to the Danish Order of the Elephant, awarded in 1686.

The tankard may have been well-received in 1707, but little did its gifters know, just two years later, chemist Johann Friedrich Böttger, on orders from Augustus, would finally crack the code to the production of porcelain, leading to the foundation of the Meissen manufactory in 1710. Once the King had access his own custom-made porcelain, the delft tankard likely held little fascination and may even have been gifted to another member of the court, leading to its later pewter mountings with ‘CK’ monogram.

See D.F. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Delft, München, 1994, p. 378 for the mark of Lambertus van Eenhoorn (1651-1724, owner of de Metalen Pot in 1691). See E. Hintze, Sächsische Zinngiesser, Aalen, 1964, p.71 nr. 342 for the pewter Meisterzeichen of Johann Christian Bösigke, born in Magdeburg, Meister in 1719, and still mentioned in 1754.