The form of this teapot is based on a Japanese sake pot, several of which were included in the collection of Augustus the Strong, though they are not on the list of pieces sent to the Meissen manufactory for copying. A celadon-ground example is in the Dr. Ernst Schneider Collection and illustrated by Julia Weber, Meissener Porzellans mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern, Munich, 2013, Vol. II, no. 130, where the author notes that five examples were listed among the porcelain seized in 1731 from Count Hoym's palace that was intended for the Paris merchant, Lemaire, and was subsequently sent to the Japanese Palace. Other examples were delivered to Count Brühl in 1732 and 1733. A celadon ground example was sold by Bonhams in London on 5 June 2013, lot 28.

As this teapot is unmarked, it was probably made for the French merchant Rodolphe Lemaire who ordered unmarked pieces so that he could sell them as Japanese Kakiemon originals. In 1728-29 Lemaire had an arrangement with Meissen, whereby he bought white Meissen porcelain in Dresden and sent it to Holland to be painted ‘in the taste of old Japan with instructions that they should send it back to me here [in Dresden] to serve as a model for the Factory painter and to put him in the taste of the colours of old Japan’.1It is possible that this teapot was one of the pieces which were sent to Holland to be decorated there.

1. John Mallet, ’European Ceramics and the Influence of Japan’ in Porcelain for Palaces, The Fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750, July – November 1990 Exhibition Catalogue, British Museum, London, 1990, p. 41, note 27. For Lemaire see Claus Boltz, ‘Hoym, Lemaire und Meissen, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Dresdner Porzellansammlung’, Keramos, 88, April 1980, pp. 57-58.