CIRCA 1710

This tea caddy is part of a small group of extremely rare Jaspisporzellan which was designed to simulate stones such as marble, porphyry or slate, an effect achieved by using variegated clays. Maria Santangelo notes that the late collector Malcolm Gutter had identified fifteen vessels with such marbled bodies. For a ‘Jaspisporzellan’ tankard from the Gutter Collection, see M. Santangelo, A Princely Pursuit, The Malcolm D. Gutter Collection of Early Meissen Porcelain, San Francisco, 2018, pp. 48-49, no. 10.

This rare form was also found in the 1779 inventory of the Japanese Palace in Dresden, built by Augustus the Strong to house his extensive collection of porcelain wares. The inventory notes "Six four-cornered boxes...five of the same, smooth, four-cornered, without cover, 4¹⁄₂ inches high, ³⁄₄ inch long, and 2 inches wide" (U. Pietsch, 61, as below). Though these examples had apertures in the center, they too were already missing their delicate lids. For a tea caddy of the same form with a cover, see Otto Walcha, Meißner Porzellan, Dresden, 1973, no. 5. For an un-polished example, see Ulrich Pietsch, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, London, 2011, p. 61, and for a polished example cut with scattered flowers, see Klaus Pechstein and Norbert Götz (Eds.), Böttgersteinzeug und frühes Meißener Porzellan, Nuremberg, 1982, p. 53, no. 35.