Designed by Johann Jacob Irminger, of baluster square-section form, the square-section spout issuing from a sea-monster’s jaws and joined to the body above by a double-scroll support, the spout terminal and support enclosed by an unpolished panel centred by cut dot-ornament and edged with a cut line border, the scroll handle with polished channelled sides, the area between the two terminals similarly decorated, the underside of the footrim polished and the centre cut with a polished dot, the the domed cover cut with steps and angles and square knop finial, polished
5⁷⁄₈ in. (15 cm.) high

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Lot Essay

The form was designed by the Dresden Court Silversmith Johann Jacob Irminger (1635?-1724) who was asked by the King in 1710 (and subsequently formally instructed in 1712) to contribute designs for Böttger’s new stoneware. He created this model of coffee-pot by fusing contemporary Baroque silver models with decoration derived from Chinese originals (the sea-monster’s head is derived from fish’s heads found on Chinese pieces). It has also been suggested that the form of Japanese sake-bottles may have influenced Irminger’s design, as well as being similar to coffee-pots made by Huguenot goldsmiths in England.¹The sides would originally have been moulded with prunus branches, but these have been removed by polishing (traces of these branches can still just be seen). For a stoneware coffee-pot with a polished spout but unpolished sides, see Ulrich Pietsch, Early Meissen Porcelain, The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, London, 2011, p. 65, no. 6.

1. By Ulrike Weinhold, curator of the Grünes Gewölbe, Dresden, cited by Maria Santangelo, A Princely Pursuit, The Malcolm D. Gutter Collection of Early Meissen Porcelain, San Francisco, 2018, p. 41 and note 27.