rare – Page 2 – Moorabool Antique Galleries

Posted on 02/05/201628/09/2023 by Paul Rosenberg — Leave a comment

Stunning Sèvres discovery, by Antoine-Joseph Chappuis (l’âiné), 1765

Sevres socketed cup & saucer with birds by Chappuis, 1765-0

Sevres socketed cup & saucer with birds by Chappuis, 1765-15585

Sevres socketed cup & saucer with birds by Chappuis, 1765-15584

Sevres socketed cup & saucer with birds by Chappuis, 1765-15583

Sevres socketed cup & saucer with birds by Chappuis, 1765-15581

Sevres socketed cup & saucer with birds by Chappuis, 1765-15580

Sevres socketed cup & saucer with birds by Chappuis, 1765-15579

Sevres socketed cup & saucer with birds by Chappuis, 1765-15598

A SÈVRES CUP AND SOCKETED SAUCER

(GOBELET ET SOUCOUPE ‘ENFONCE,’ 1ERE GRANDEUR)

The Royal French porcelain manufactory at Sèvres was well patronized by the French court, and the pieces they created were meant to be the most flamboyant and impressive luxuries imaginable. This pink ground cup & saucer certainly qualifies.

Important Sèvres cup and saucer, goblet et soucoup enfoncé, premiere grandeur , superbly painted by Antoine-Joseph Chappuis (aîné), with four panels of birds in landscapes, framed within rich tooled gold borders against a ground of blue and gold oeil-de-perdrix on a pink ground.

Crossed ‘L’s’ mark,

also date letter ‘M’ for 1765,

‘cp’ for artist Antoine-Joseph Chappuis (aîné),

incised cup repairer’s mark ‘00’ & ‘ae’

Madame de Pompadour was probably responsible for the inception of this unusual form of saucer, with its deep well ensuring the cup cannot be easily upset. The form appears in 1753, and as she was failing in health with tuberculosis, a socketed saucer negated the risk of spilling her drink due to a shaking hand or coughing fit. Factory records show that all examples of this type made were purchased by her until her death in 1764. The next recorded sale was in October 1765 to Princess Louise-Marie of France, youngest daughter of Louis XV. Its present whereabouts are unrecorded, and this example has a high possibility of being the goblet et soucoup enfoncé, premiere grandeur in question.

Sevres socketed cup & saucer with birds by Chappuis, 1765

They were one-off products, and examples vary wildly in decoration. An example in the Getty Museum is thought to have belonged to Madame de Pompadour. It has a saucer with an unknown repairer’s mark (00), the same as on this cup. The gilding appears on numerous examples from this period, often with small inconsistencies such as can be seen in the above detail, where the gold doesn’t quite cover the ground.

The artist Chappuis ‘l’aîne’ was a long-term employee at Sèvres, being apprenticed as a répareur (maker) in 1756, became a painter in 1761, became the deputy ‘head of kilns’ in 1782 , and in charge of the kilns for the final year of his life in 1787.

His wonderfully vivid birds are distinct amongst the Sèvres artists repertoire, and a piece such as this important goblet et soucoup enfoncé, premiere grandeur show Sèvres at its best.

Provenance: The Antique Porcelain Company, NY

References:

Similar gilding can seen on a can & saucer in the British Museum, #110 in Dawson’s book ‘French Porcelain in the British Museum’, also #112.

An écoulle, cover & stand with the same decoration was sold as part of the Giuseppe Rossi collection, Sothebys London 1999 lot 518

A coffee can & saucer with similar ground, also with birds by Antoine-Joseph Chappuis (l’âiné), 1766, at the Victorian & Albert Museum, South Kensington

The Sulkowski Charger -purchased by the NGV

We have found a number of outstanding items over the years, and many of these have left Australia for distant shores. It’s with great pleasure that we can announce the acquisition of our latest ‘Great Find’, the Sulkowski Charger, by our very local National Gallery of Victoria.

Sulkowski Meissen Charger c. 1735-8 — Sulkowski Service – Meissen Charger c. 1735-8

This is a large piece of porcelain, measuring 34.5cm across. It isn’t the largest from the service – there appears to be two sizes larger again – but it is an impressive piece, perfectly displaying the large & showy armorial device. It is this coat of arms that makes this so important; experts regard it as the earliest large-scale commission from the Meissen factory made for someone other than the owner of the works, Augustus II ‘The Strong’.

These arms are depicting a marriage, with the two shields beneath the crown representing each family. On the left is Count von Sulkowski (1695-1762), the high ranking court official. On the right are the arms of Baroness Maria Franziska von Stein zu Jettingen (1712-41) who he married in 1728 and had 7 children with. The production of a service such as this 8 years later is almost like a delayed wedding gift for himself; usually they are contemporary with the wedding, but remember the context: Meissen, the first producer of porcelain in Europe, was still in its infancy in the 1720’s, and we could argue that a service of such elaborate sophistication would not have been possible as the capabilities of the Meissen works were not yet experienced enough.

Alexander Joseph Graf von Sulkowski was Privy Councillor, Minister of State, and a Cabinet Minister to the King, Frederick Augustus. He was deeply involved in the Meissen factory, taking responsibility for the deliveries of porcelain to furnish the newly built ‘Porcelain Palace’ in Dresden, and also being responsible for the King’s treasure vaults in Dresden, known as the ‘Green Vaults’.

Augustus The Strong — Augustus II ‘The Strong’

His origins & ascent to power is a tale in itself. Born to Polish gentry, rumour has it his mother fell under the spell of Augustus II ‘The Strong’, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland ( and creator of the Meissen porcelain factory!). Augustus II was known as ‘The Strong’ for his musculature, reinforced by his favourite party trick of apparently ripping iron horseshoes in half with his bare hands….. But there is another aspect to his nickname, the results of which were a debatable 354 illegitimate children!

Rumour has it that Alexander was one such child, and certainly Augustus II cared for the youth who came to the Royal Court at Warsaw in 1711 as a page. He entered the service of the crown prince, Frederick Augustus, who was one year younger, and they grew up together. He received his first title in 1712, ‘Master of the Horse’, and for the next seven years he & the Crown Prince went travelling through Italy, France, and the other German states. A couple of teenagers seeing the sights of Europe together, who can imagine what adventures they had…. certainly it would have been a bonding experience, and so Augustus was well established to rise in status in the court. He became a ‘Gentleman of the Bedchamber’ in 1726, married a court Lady-in-waiting in 1728, and became a Count in 1732. On 1st February 1733, Augustus II ‘The Strong’ died, and his heir Frederick Augustus ascended the throne. Straight away, Alexander was made Privy Councillor, Minister of State, Cabinet Minister and an Imperial Count. He also became a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. He was a Pole, and the only Pole to achieve such a lofty position in the court at that time. Like a Shakespearian play, the scene was set for his fall.

What is fascinating is that this very service has been blamed for his descent; it was so much showier & desirable than the King’s own services, and more importantly, he had not asked permission from the King – the owner of the works – before putting in his order. Certainly, he lost favour at the exact same time the pieces began to be delivered, and so Sulkowski lost his many positions of privilege & responsibility to another of Frederick Augustus’s ministers, Heinrich Graf von Brühl. Brühl takes on most of Sulkowski’s titles, including Director of the Meissen works, and straight away commissions his own grand, Baroque service – the delightful & iconic ‘Swan Service’.

The National Gallery already has a magnificent charger from Brühl’s service, and these two marvelous Meissen chargers will soon be housed together in the same cabinet – graphic depictions of a government power struggle 290 years ago that centered on Meissen, Europe’s first porcelain maker.

To be continued in Part 2…… once the charger is in place in the NGV!

Posted on 14/03/201528/09/2023 by Paul Rosenberg — Leave a comment

From the Dawn of porcelain production in Europe….

‘China’ was for centuries an expensive, exotic import from the far East. There were many attempts at producing it in Europe, but it wasn’t until 1709 that the alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger apparently ‘discovered’ the secret, and in 1709 he was responsible for the founding of the Meissen porcelain factory, under the direction – and funded by – Augustus II ‘The Strong’. This was the first porcelain factory to make commercial amounts of porcelain in Europe, according to the authentic Chinese definition of ‘porcelain’ – and remarkably, it is still a functioning concern, being a state run business in Dresden in the modern age.

Albrechtsburg, Meissen — The Albrechtsburg, location of original Meissen factory.

The secret to making porcelain was kept for the next two decades, helped by the location of the factory, in the Albrechtsburg castle in Meissen, which is located on top of a hill with a single gatehouse for access. Workmen’s comings & goings were strictly controlled, and none knew the entire process to the mystery of porcelain production. However, the value of the product meant there were many other attempts in Europe to emulate Meissen’s success, and industrial espionage resulted in workmen being lured away from the works. This was instigated by a private businessman in Vienna, a Dutchman named Du Paquier, and he gives his name to the second porcelain works to be founded in Europe. He made his first limited examples in 1719, and for the next 25 years was the only real rival to Meissen for porcelain in Europe.

Böttger porcelain cup, Meissen, circa 1715 — The Dawn of European Porcelain: Meissen & Du Paquier

Moorabool is excited to be able to offer an example of porcelain from the infancy of each of these factories, the 1st and the 2nd to exist in Europe. On the left is a Meissen cup, of the early porcelain body known as ‘Böttger Porcelain’, dating to c. 1715. On the right is a Du Paquier cage cup/stand, circa 1725.

Both of these amazing rarities will be a part of our 2015 Catalogue, opening in Geelong & online on March 28th.
They will be the subject of their own page here in the near future, with more photos & in-depth history.

Posted on 13/03/201523/11/2023 by Paul Rosenberg — Leave a comment

A Yellow Sévres new discovery, 1788

A colourful Sévres coffee can & saucer has a fascinating tale to tell, and is an as-yet unpublished clue that helps to identify a under-appreciated Sévres artist.

The cup & saucer – a ‘gobelet litron’, third size – is a stunning yellow colour, with a finely painted blue continuous landscape in blue that seems to float on the thick yellow ground. There is a border of dainty colourful scrolling foliage, and in the centre of the saucer, a pinwheel device almost like a

target. It’s fully marked to both pieces, and being unusual – and knowing the way Sévres was so often copied and outside-decorated – a full examination was required to ensure it was authentic. This brought to light some problems, and shows once again the ever-changing field of ceramics research: never believe absolutely what you read in print!

A quick look in the authoritative book on the subject, ‘SÉVRES PORCELAIN’ by Eriksen 1987 (p153 #46) apparently attributes the mark ‘ f B ‘ to a certain Francois-Marie Barrat, active 1769-91, a date that conforms nicely with the date 1788. However, the next entry is more accurate for the mark: #47, a ‘f B’ combination. Eriksen attributes this to Francois-Marie Barrat as an alternate mark, but states ‘….the compilers have never seen mark 47 which may be an incorrect rendering of Barrat’s usual mark.’

I can now demonstrate that this is wrong; there is another artist with a surname starting with B, Bouillat, who came to Sevres in 1758, and remained active there until 1810, a remarkable example of the dedication workmen felt to the factory. His mark was a capital Y, so he is not the artist in question; rather, his marriage in 1768 to a female artist at the factory, Genevieve-Louis Thevenet – (herself the daughter of a Factory artist Louis-Jean Thevenet!) resulted in a son and a daughter, who both became painters at Sévres. The son, or fil in French, began work at the factory in 1786, and left to join the army in 1793. During that time this mark appears on a series of pieces, including this cup & saucer. The lower-case f is obviously a stand-in for fil , and the B for Bouillat. The mark ‘fB’ should now be identified as Francois Bouillat, painter of flowers and landscapes.

On this basis, his work can be found on a service in the Queens Collection, and also a cup & saucer in the Hermitage, Russia. This example is particularly interesting as it has the same fluted colourful pinwheel device to the centre as our cup & saucer. It also bears small panels of the same vivid yellow, overpainted with brown scrolling foliage & urns, and is dated 1789.

There is a second painters mark, set in next to the footrim, consisting of ‘…’ . This mark is that of Jean-Baptiste Tandart, a prolific painter from 1754-1803. He is recorded as a ‘painter of flowers’ , which along with the secondary position of the mark indicates he was responsible for the garlands of flowers in the border.

The landscape decoration is known as ‘paysage circulaire’ (circular landscape) and in this form is extremely rare on Sévres, with the scene in blue painted directly on a brilliant yellow ground. This was technically a feat in itself, and perhaps was not used much due to the issues we see on this cup & saucer: the blue tends to bead into clumps, and the thick yellow enamels shift in the heat of the enamel firings. While the yellow pigment had been a very early Sévres development, the tone seen here appears in the early 1780’s and is not repeated after the Revolution. There are a handful of specimens scattered around the globe in various collections, making this a most rare & desirable item.

Moorabool is pleased to offer this rarity as a part of our 2015 Exhibition & Catalogue, opening in Geelong & online on March 28th.

Posted on 01/03/201528/09/2023 by Paul Rosenberg

It’s a funny thing….

Humour is a funny thing. We always groaned at our parents jokes; they were so old-fashioned & not funny. Now my kids do the same to mine – today, humour is rapidly moving on, along the evolutionary path to the greatest possible laugh. I just don’t get a lot of it. lol.

Looking back, the old humour of previous centuries is just as odd. Moorabool has a fantastic selection of ‘ceramic laughs’ to share in our upcoming exhibition. Most are Staffordshire figures, or the German porcelain ‘fairings’ – cheaper clumsier models, the humour often risqué and bad-taste. This ‘cheap’ appearance would suggest that the people laughing were the poorer folk. However, this is clearly not the case, as we have some very rare porcelain versions of the same subject as the Staffordshire pottery models, and they are sophisticated and would have been expensive.

Early Minton Figures c.1825 Cobblers Wife & Friar — Early Minton Figures c.1825 in front of the original 1820’s Minton shapes book, as reproduced in Godden’s ‘Minton’

The Cobbler & his Wife,

otherwise known as Jobson and Nell, comes from a Georgian popular poem. It was immensely popular, re-printed many times throughout the second half of the 18th century and well into the 19th. The story is simple; the village cobbler, Jobson, was a bit of a drinker, and went on the occasional binge. When this happened, no shoes got mended. When the village parson desperately needed his shoes done for Sunday, Jobson ‘left him in the lurch’, stating that the Parson could do them himself – because he was well used to ‘cobbling soles’ …. and that’s the humorous bit: the play on words between soul and sole. A cobbler and a Parson being practically the same in their careers.

Early Minton Figure c.1825 Cobblers Wife

Of course, the poem goes on another dozen verses, with his wife Nell seeking to blackmail him into behaving by giving him no supper; Jobson resolves this by pinching the Parson’s roast beef dinner for himself! The Parson runs around until he finds his roast beef in Jobson’s house,

“When he found his roat Beef / It gave him relief / To think he his meal should not lose / Down together they sat / And eat both lean and fat / And forgave Jobson keeping the Shoes. “

Quite slapstick, and not producing many belly laughs today, the poem would have perfectly suited a pantomime – for which purpose it was adapted. There were numerous variations of the pottery figures produced in Staffordshire, and surprisingly they were also one of the earliest figures in the Minton Factory shape book of the 1820’s. While the Staffordshire examples are often crudely potted and would not have sold for much, the pottery examples we have are as good as they get. Dating to circa 1800, they are well modelled and well coloured, and have the unusual feature of the names of each character impressed into the front of their plinth.

Early Staffordshire figures - Old Age , Jobson & Nell, c. 1820 — Early Staffordshire figures – Old Age , Jobson & Nell, c. 1820

The Minton example is in the factory’s bone china body, a beautiful creamy white. The colours are well done, and there is the added expense of gold, which would have instantly vastly inflated the price. The form is also interesting; it follows a metal ‘chimney piece’ shape, where small metal ornaments cast as a flat panel were placed on the narrow shelf of a mantel piece. There are only a handful in the Minton shape book, and they are rare at other factories also; obviously they were a breakable product, not a suitable substitute for the usual cast brass ornaments.

Early Minton Figure c.1825 Drink, or The Friar

The second Minton porcelain chimney piece that Moorabool has is ‘The Friar’. (They came together, and bear the Australian Antique import seal of the 1920’s-30’s …. nice to think they have always been together since they were purchased new almost 200 years ago) This curios piece is yet another enigmatic piece of early humour. Along the plinth runs the verse “PRO OMNIBUS BIBO”, which translates as “I drink for the benefit of all“. Funny? almost, in the context of a friar being there to serve the community. There is much more to this story, though, in the form of a tale that comes from the popular folk tales of the ‘wandering Jew’. In this tale, ‘Pro omnibus bibo’ was the ‘song sung in solo’ by one of the monks at a great monastery the wandering Jew visited in France. All the brethren had been confined to their beds by sickness, leaving the single friar to go through the devotions all by himself….. including consuming the entire allocation of ale usually divided amongst his comrades! This image of a stout friar swigging directly from the barrel must have really amused people at the time. The image we have traced to a frontispiece on a song sheet published in 1830, the words by E. Whatmore, the music composed by Edward Schultz.

Imagine… pre-TV, pre- internet, the family gathering around the piano to sing a jolly funny song about a friar that liked to drink a lot. What fun we miss out on these days! lol/ (;

These & more exciting pieces will be a part of our 2015 Exhibition & Sale of Recent Acquisitions, to be held in Geelong, opening March 28th at 11.

Posted on 22/01/201528/09/2023 by Paul Rosenberg

A Remarkable Discovery

Once in a lifetime, the rarest objects suprise us by turning up in our own back yard. There’s ‘rare’ and then there’s ‘supremely rare’. The bottles here belong to the ‘Supremely Rare’ catagory.

Brought in to Moorabool Antiques by a local gent, they were family pieces, handed down through several generations with origins in Holland, and the Dutch East Indies Company.

These wine bottles are of typical mid-17th century form, although in a vivid emerald green colour rather than the more often-seen deep black/green. My assessment was: nice early pieces, a few thousand dollars worth. But something was nagging the back of my mind; looking back through some photos taken at the Victoria & Albert Museum ( late last century!) I realised why the engraving was familiar; I had admired & photographed one there.

Theirs is signed & dated, and sure enough, this example bears a tiny engraved signature, “Willem Van Heemskerk” and the date – 26th February 1677!

Willem Jacobz. van Heemskerk (Leiden, 1616-93) was actually a cloth merchant, but in his spare time he practiced the art of caligraphy – using diamond-point engraving on glass vessels. His verses are described by the authorities as ‘pithy’ – often biblical, or drinking toasts, often with a touch of humour. “The lamp of life is but a vapor” reads one, while others appeal to the mercantile Dutch sensibilities: “Eat silently”, i.e. keep quiet when making gain, and “He who brags about his success, often loses his gains” , both quotes from a Statesman of the time, Jacob Cats (1577-1660).

The bottle we have is a very charismatic piece, and needs to be handled to truly appreciate the beautiful (as yet un-translated) script. However, it has now been locked away in a very safe place, as I will explain:

The real shock came when I looked up auction prices…. they head into the 6-figure range!

Our example is comparable to this one, sold at Christies in 2013:

It seems there are only around 80 of these beautiful pieces known, and they are considered to be the most desirable of their kind. The Rijksmuseum has 25 of his works, while the Museum Boijmans in Rotterdam has 8; the Getty has 1, the V&A has one, and our own National Gallery of Victoria here in Melbourne has a clear glass goblet by him, purchased in 1989.

Moorabool is very excited to be able to offer this rarity, along with its simpler un-engraved relative, in our 2015 ‘Recent Acquisitions’ Exhibition.

The best way to enjoy it is to have a look at the video I have posted on YouTube.

Tag: rare