A Meissen teabowl and saucer from the Japanese Palace, circa 1730. Photo Bonhams

Painted in Kakiemon style with the 'Three Friends of Winter, flowering branches of pine, prunus and bamboo, issuing from banded hedges, brown-edged rims, the teabowl: 4.1cm high; the saucer: 12.5cm diam, crossed swords marks in blue enamel to both, incised Japanese Palace inventory numbers N=243-/ W to both, impressed Dreher's marks .. for Johann Martin Kittel inside footrims (2). Lot 22. Estimate: £3,000 - 5,000 / €3,600 - 6,100 / US$ 4,800 - 8,100

Notes: The 1770 inventory of the Japanese Palace lists: 'Sechs und Dreyßig Dutzendt und 3. Stück Thée Schälgen, mit braunen Rändern, Korn- und andern Blumen, ¾. Zoll tief, 5¾. Zoll in Diam: darunter 5. St. defect, und 36 Dutzendt, und 4. Stück detto Copgen, 1¾. Zoll hoch, 3. Zoll in Diam: No. 243' [thirty-six dozen and three tea dishes, with brown rims, grain and other flowers [...] and 36 dozen and four ditto teabowls]; quoted by Claus Boltz, Japanisches Palais-Inventory 1770, in Keramos 153 (1996), p. 53.

Bonhams. 23 May 2012 10:30 a.m. London, New Bond Street. Fine Meissen Porcelain from a Private Collection.