An early Meissen teabowl and saucer with gold paillon decoration, circa 1720-30. Photo: Bonhams.

Decorated in Saxony with die-stamped gold appliqués depicting an ostrich flanked by scrolling foliage on each side of the teabowl and smaller vignettes of birds to either side, the inside rim with three vignettes of a tree flanked by two hares, the saucer with a bird in the centre and a band of floral and foliate swags to the rim the saucer: 12cm diam., incised / inside each footrim (typical minor losses) (2). Estimate £4,000 - 6,000 (€5,000 - 7,400)

Provenance: Anon. sale, Christie's London, 30 June 1986, lot 95

For a discussion of this and related types of gold decoration on Meissen, French and Chinese porcelain, see Errol Manners, Gold Decoration on French, German, and Oriental Porcelain in the early 18th Century, in The French Porcelain Society Journal, IV (2011), pp. 24-42. The author notes that such decoration was executed in Paris, Saxony and Berlin, but attributes decoration of this type to Saxony as it corresponds exactly with the decoration of Saxon glass from the period of Augustus III, though the technique could have been in use earlier. The same ostrich motif appears on a similarly decorated Meissen teapot and cover in the Arnhold Collection, New York (M. Cassidy-Geiger, The Arnhold Collection of Meissen Porcelain 1710-50, no. 318 - the author notes (p. 630) that decoration of this type is recorded in the inventory of the Japanese Palace in Dresden in 1721). A differently shaped Meissen teapot and cover with the same ostrich motif is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Manners, fig. 22).

Bonhams. FINE EUROPEAN CERAMICS. London, New Bond Street, 18 Jun 2014 - http://www.bonhams.com/