A Meissen Böttger stoneware saucer, circa 1710-13.  Photo Bonhams

Polished, with gilt lappet border to the rim and double-line border to the reverse, 14cm diam Lot 1. Estimate: £5,000 - 7,000 / €6,100 - 8,500 / US$ 8,100 - 11,000

Provenance: Margravine Caroline Luise of Baden-Durlach (1723-83);
Hereditary Prince Carl Ludwig of Baden (1755-1801);
Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden (1826-1907);
Thence by descent; the Collections of the Margraves and Grand Dukes of Baden, sold by Sotheby's Baden-Baden, 18 October 1995, lot 1257

Literature: Karl Koelitz, Beschriebendes Inventar der Allerhöchsten Privatsammlung kunstgewerblicher Gegenstände (unpublished ms, Karlsruhe, 1883), inv. no. 831;
Richter, Inventar des Zähringer Museums (unpublished ms, Baden-Baden, 1919), inv. no. 1060

Exhibited: Karlsruhe, Zähringer Museum, Grand Ducal Residence, from 1879;
Baden-Baden, Zähringer Museum, Neues Schloss, ca. 1960-93

This saucer belonged to an extensive group of polished Böttger stoneware embellished in gilding that was probably part of the celebrated collection of the Margravine Sybilla Augusta of Baden-Baden (1675-1733) in Schloss Favorite. This collection was eventually inherited by the Margravine Caroline Luise of Baden-Durlach (1723-83), who displayed the historic porcelain collection as part of her Naturalia Cabinet in the Karlsruhe Residence. The Böttger stoneware, along with much of the porcelain collection, is listed in her posthumous inventory, as well as in that of her son, Carl Ludwig von Baden-Durlach. This saucer, together with the rest of the service, was exhibited from 1879 in the same rooms in the Grand Ducal Residence in Karlsruhe that had contained the Naturalia Cabinet and is listed in the inventory of 1883 by Karl Koelitz. From 1919, much of the service was moved to the Neues Schloss, Baden-Baden, and from around 1960 was on public display as part of the Zähringer Museum. Other parts of the same service, now in the collection of the Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Baden-Württemberg, Schloss Favorite (inv. nos. G7573, 7577, 7580-81) are published by U. Grimm / U. Wiese, Was Bleibt (1996), pp. 52ff. A teabowl and saucer from the service is in the Arnhold Collection, New York, published by M. Cassidy-Geiger, The Arnhold Collection of Meissen Porcelain 1710-50 (2008), no. 63.

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