This pair of beaker vases would have originally formed part of a garniture of perhaps five, or even more vases, intended for display on a mantelpiece. From the second half of the 17^th century, garnitures with earthenware bodies (often blue and white Dutch Delftware) became popular amongst the European aristocracy. The discovery of the recipe for hard-paste porcelain at Meissen in around 1710 allowed the creative workers there to create large-scale decorative vases in imitation of similar coveted wares from Japan and China, which were imported at great cost. By 1731, Johann Gregorius Höroldt had developed 16 new enamel colours, recording their recipes in a book in which he also sketched designs to be used as templates for his decorating schemes.

The decoration on the present pair of vases is referred to in the Meissen literature as indianischeBlumen – ‘Flowers of the East Indies’. The style draws its name and inspiration from the Chinese famille verte colour palette and the Japanese Kakiemon-decorated porcelain imported into Europe via the Compagnie des Indes. Many of these Chinese and Japanese ceramics were held in the collection of Augustus the Strong in his Japanese Palace in Dresden. Many Meissen vases were painted in this style, though the present decoration is more unusual for the depiction of ‘precious objects’ on the bulbous part of the vase bodies. A plate painted in the Chinese famille rose palette and with Buddhist symbols and ‘precious objects’ is illustrated in Ulrich Pietsch, Early Meissen Porcelain, The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, London 2011, p. 237, pl. 227.