LATE 19TH/20TH CENTURY, BLUE CROSSED SWORDS MARKS, IMPRESSED 125, 189 AND CYPHER, THE SILVER MARK OF ELI MEYER, DRESDEN

The paintings reproduced on each side of this vase bear connections to Dresden and the private collection of Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. The painting to one side derives from Rembrandt's 1635 oil on canvas, The Prodigal Son in the Tavern (or brothel), its figures identified as Rembrandt himself and his wife, Saskia van Uylenburgh. The painting entered the collection of Augustus III in 1751, and is today housed in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden (gal.-no. 1559). Similar Meissen vases painted after the same scene have been sold by Christie's, Amsterdam, 9 November 2004, lot 503; and Christie's, New York, 24 April 2001, lot 68. A Meissen plaque after the scene was sold by Christie's, New York, 10 October 2001, lot 102.

The scene to the other side of the vase is painted after Caspar Netscher's 1666 genre scene of an opulently dressed young girl seen through a window as she tends to a pet parrot. Although Netscher's original panel painting resided in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, at the time this vase was produced, many copies of the painting are recorded, the best-known of which was acquired in 1741 by Augustus III, and is today also in the collection of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (gal. no. 1399). Netscher's original painting was sold by Christie's, New York, 4 Jun 2014, lot 16, and is now preserved in the National Gallery of Art, Washington (accession no. 2016.118.1).