Painted with figures in a garden including a small boy playing with a dog, insects in flight above, the cover mounted with a memorial coin for King Christian V (1646–1699) of Norway and Denmark
7⁷⁄₈ in. (20 cm.) high

Collection Hoth, Berlin; Auction Lepke, Berlin 23-24 February 1926, Lot 123.
Franz and Margarete Oppenheimer, Berlin by 1927 (inv. No. 245).
Fritz Mannheimer, Amsterdam, included in an involuntary sale by the above, by 1938.
Confiscated by the 'Dienststelle Mühlmann', 1941, following the occupation of The Netherlands.
Recovered by Monuments, Fine Art and Archives Section, Munich Central Collecting Point, 2 July 1945 (MCCP no. 2367/10).
Returned to the Stichting Nederlands Kunstbezit, The Netherlands, Amsterdam, 15 February 1946.
Dr. F Mannheimer Collection sale, Frederik Muller & Cie., Amsterdam, 14-21 October 1952, lot 311.

The present work is being offered for sale pursuant to an agreement between the consignor and the Heirs of Franz and Margarete Oppenheimer. This resolves any dispute over ownership of the work and title will pass to the buyer.

Dr. Franz Oppenheimer (1871–1950) and his wife Margarethe (née Knapp, 1878–1949) were prominent Jewish art collectors, who from 1902 began to build an outstanding porcelain collection, with a particular focus on Meissen porcelain with Chinoiserie decoration. Displayed in their Berlin home, in 1927 the collection was catalogued by Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1877–1945),the renowned expert on European porcelain and ceramics, who was a curator and professor at Berlin’s Museum of Decorative Arts

After the Nazis came to power, the Oppenheimers fled to Vienna in 1936. On 12 March 1938, the day before Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany, they fled again to Budapest with only the bare essentials, embarking on a long journey via Sweden and Colombia to reach New York in 1941. The Oppenheimers were twice forced to pay discriminatory taxes, in Berlin and in Vienna, where the contents of both their homes were looted by the Nazis.

A short time before their flight from Vienna, the Oppenheimers sold most of their porcelain collection to Fritz Mannheimer (1890–1939), the Jewish director of the Amsterdam branch of the Berlin bank Mendelssohn & Co., who had built up a vast and wide-ranging collection, displayed in his Amsterdam home. Mannheimer died suddenly in 1939.

Following the occupation of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany in May 1940, the executors of the estate sold the collection en bloc to Kajetan Mühlmann, head of the Nazi art looting agency in the Netherlands. After the end of the war, the Allies recovered the Mannheimer collection and transferred it to the Munich Central Collecting Point (MCCP) before returning it to the Netherlands into the care of the Stichting Nederlands Kunstbezit, the Dutch authority charged with the handling and restitution of artworks repatriated from Germany. In 1952, part of the Oppenheimer porcelain collection was sold at Frederik Müller & Co. in Amsterdam.

Gustav E. Pazaurek, Meissner Porzellanmalerei des 18. Jahrhunderts, 1929, p. 29, pl. 13.
Cited by Abraham L. den Blaauwen, Meissen Porcelain in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2000, p. 63.

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Lot Essay

Johann Christoph Horn (1692-1760) arrived at Meissen in 1720 from Eggebrecht’s fayence factory in Dresden. He was an early assistant to Höroldt, who had just arrived from Vienna and opened up his workshop within the factory. The present tankard belongs to an early group of pieces⁽¹⁾which are painted with chinoiserie figures and scenes using coloured enamels in combination with underglaze blue. These pieces have been attributed to Horn because of their stylistic similarity to four slightly later pieces bearing monograms which are presumed to be for Horn. The monogramed pieces which identify his style are two écuelles⁽²⁾, a tureen stand⁽³⁾and a boxed travelling service⁽⁴⁾.

1. For a group of early pieces attributed to Horn, see U. Pietsch and C. Banz (Eds.), Triumph of the Blue Swords, Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, Leipzig, 2010, pp. 200-202, Cat. Nos. 68-75. No. 70 (a jug and cover) is also illustrated by Abraham L. den Blaauwen, ibid., 2000, pp. 62-63.
2. In the State Porcelain Collection, Dresden, illustrated by Pietsch and Banz (Eds.), ibid., 2010, p. 203, Cat. No. 78 and p. 205, Cat. No. 81, and see Menzhausen, ‘Höroldt und sein “Seminarum” – Meissen, 1720 bis 1730’ in Keramos, No. 120, 1988, p. 34, figs. 31-33.
3. Formerly in the Hoffmeister Collection, see D. Hoffmeister, Meissener Porzellan Des 18. Jahrhunderts, Katalog der Sammlung Hoffmeister, Hamburg, 1999, Vol. I, no. 49.
4. In the Museo Giuseppe Gianetti, Saronno, and illustrated by U. Pietsch and C. Banz, ibid., 2010, p. 204, no. 79.