A pair of Meissen teabowls and saucers of 'Half-Figure Service' type, circa 1723-25. Photo: Bonhams.

Each superbly painted with chinoiserie scenes depicting half-length figures engaged in various pursuits, within shaped gilt quatrelobe cartouches embellished in iron-red, purple and yellow with foliate scrollwork, the rims with gilt scrollwork borders, the inside of the teabowls with circular trellis panels reserved with chrysanthemum heads, crossed swords marks in underglaze-blue, incised / inside footrims (scattered minor wear to gilding on saucers) (4). Estimate £25,000 - 35,000 (€31,000 - 43,000)

Provenance: Anon. sale, Christie's London, 5 October 1981, lot 155

Literature: H. Jedding, Meissener Porzellan in Hamburger Privatbesitz (1982), nos. 61-62;
U. Pietsch, Johann Gregorious Höroldt 1696-1775 und die Meissener Porzellanmalerie (1996), nos. 72-75;
U. Pietsch, Frühes Meissener Porzellan aus einer Privatsammlung (1993), nos. 37-38;
U. Pietsch/C. Banz, Triumph der blauen Schwerter (2010), no. 52

Exhibited: Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 'Meissener Porzellan aus Hamburger Privatbesitz', 4 June-5 September 1982;
Lübeck, Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte der Hansestadt Lübeck - St. Annen-Museum, 'Frühes Meissener Porzellan aus einer Privatsammlung', 14 November 1993-31 January 1994;
Aachen, Museen der Stadt Aachen - Couven Museum, 'Frühes Meissener Porzellan aus einer Privatsammlung', 26 February-20 April 1994;
Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden - Porzellansammlung im Zwinger, 'Johann Gregorius Höroldt 1696-1775 und die Meissener Porzellanmalerei', 4 August-20 October 1996;
Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Japanisches Palais, 'Triumph der blauen Schwerter: Meissener Porzellan für Adel und Bürgertum 1710-1815', 8 May-29 August 2010

A similarly decorated pair of teabowls and saucers is in the Stout Collection (C. Nelson/L. Roberts, A History of Eighteenth-Century German Porcelain: The Warda Stevens Stout Collection (2013), no. 33); a group of seventeen pieces of 'Half-Figure Service' type were sold in these Rooms from the Marouf Collection, 5 December 2012, lot 19.

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