Dr. Adolf Moritz List (1861-1938) was a successful German-Jewish entrepreneur and co-founder of the saccharine factory Fahlberg, List & Co in Magdeburg. List formed one of the most significant German private collections of decorative arts in the first half of the 20th century. At its height the List collection consisted of more than 3,000 objects. Upon his death in 1938, Adolf List’s collection was inherited by his widow, Helene (1868-1938). Shortly after, Helene was forced to sell their home to the Nazi organization Neue Heimat, Gemeinnützige Wohnungs- und Siedlungsgesellschaft der Deutschen Arbeitsfront. This precipitated the sale of their art collection. After the war, the house in Magdeburg was restituted to Helene and Adolf’s descendants in 1994. Recently, works of art from this 1939 auction have also been restituted.
This baroque eagle-spout octagonal teapot was designed by Johann Jakob Irminger, the Court Silversmith who was asked by the King in 1710 (and subsequently formally instructed in 1712) to contribute designs for Böttger’s new stoneware. The design was produced with two different handles, and there is also a different but related teapot form which is much less elaborate.1 There is a black “lacquered” teapot of the same form as the present lot in the Hans Syz Collection in Washington DC., and another (the cover seemingly with a replacement finial) in the Wark Collection, Jacksonville, Florida. Other published black-glazed teapots of this type appear to have the simpler handle rather than the flamboyant handle of the present lot.2
In the August 1711 inventory of pieces at the factory there were twenty-one teapots of this type described as 8Bassigs Thee Krügel mit dem Adler Schnäutzgen (8-sided teapots with eagle-shaped spouts).3 The shape of handle is not differentiated, so presumably some were of the same type as the present lot, and others (probably a greater number) were of the type with a simpler handle. Four of these teapots were described as laccirt (lacquered) and had presumably already received their final decoration, while seventeen were described as schwarz glassurt (black-glazed), and presumably had yet to receive over-glaze decoration. It’s very possible that the present lot is one of the twenty-one teapots recorded in 1711.
Böttger's early factory quickly adapted the use of black lacquer and other decorative elements found on Asian imports into its highly innovative repertoire for the decoration of red stoneware. Red stoneware and black-glazed red stoneware were first offered for sale at the Easter Fair (Ostermesse) at Leipzig in 1710, the same year that the factory opened. Also in January the same year, Martin Schnell was employed by Augustus 'the Strong', Elector of Saxony, as his Hofflacquirer (Court lacquerer), and a collaboration with the Meissen factory was formed. Schnell is recorded as having been paid a high salary by the factory for lacquering and decorating red stoneware. In a list of factory workers drawn up in Autumn 1710 (probably by Böttger himself), a Laccirer Schnell is recorded with a weekly salary of 5 thalers.4 By August 1711, he was hugely busy, being paid 30 thalers every two weeks.5 It is clear from his extremely high wages that his work was very highly regarded by Augustus, even if the wages included the cost of the gold which he needed for his work.6
However, specific information about Schnell's work appears to be scant. Monika Kopplin takes on the problem of attribution for Schnell's work by detailed comparison between simulated lacquerwork on Böttger pieces with lacquer furniture and other wood objects applied with lacquer decoration known to have been supplied by Schnell.7 Schnell’s workshop didn’t decorate Meissen stoneware pieces for very long; from 1716 onwards his name no longer appears in the Meissen records. The factory's development and shift to white porcelain production from 1713 onwards is thought to be a factor in this, and by 1717, Schnell and his workshop were fully preoccupied with the fittings and interior decoration of various buildings for the king.
1. For an example of the alternative (simpler) scroll handle, see Maria Santangelo, A Princely Pursuit, The Malcolm D. Gutter Collection of Early Meissen Porcelain, San Francisco, 2018, pp. 42-43, no. 8.
2. The Syz Collection piece in the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C., is illustrated by Ingelore Menzhausen, ‘Das Rothe und das Weisse Porcellain’ in Johann Friedrich Böttger, Die Erfindung Des Europäischen Porzellans, Leipzig, 1982, fig. 93, and the Wark Collection example is illustrated by Ulrich Pietsch, Early Meissen Porcelain, The Wark Collection, London, 2011, p. 77, no. 18.
3. Claus Bolz, 1982, pp. 25 and 40, ill. 8. A variant eagle-head spout octagonal teapot, with less steep sides, a single-scroll handle and a gadrooned lower part was made; for an un-polished stoneware example of this form see Barbara Szelegejd, Red and Black Stoneware and their Imitations in the Wilanów Collection, Warsaw, 2013, pp. 243-246, no. 37.
4. Barbara Szelegejd, ibid., 2013, p. 211.
5. Barbara Szelegejd, ibid., 2013, p. 211.
6. Noted by Monika Kopplin in her essay 'All Sorts of Lacquered Chinese on a Black Glaze - Lacquer Painting on Böttger Stoneware and the Problem of Attribution to Martin Schnell' in ‘Schwartz Porcelain’, Museum für Lackkunst December and Schloß Favorite bei Rastatt 2003-2004, Exhibition Catalogue, Munich, 2003 (English Edition, Munich, 2004, p. 84). The 1712 factory payroll records that Schnell's monthly salary was 100 Reichsthaler.
7. Kopplin, ibid., Munich, 2003, pp. 171-193 (English Edition, 2004, pp. 83-91).