A very rare Meissen teapot and cover, circa 1729-30. Photo: Bonhams 

The globular body with a curved spout and loop handle, painted in Kakiemon style with a continuous scene of figures flanked by flowering branches issuing from rockwork and a birdcage hanging from a branch, the cover similarly decorated and surmounted by a knop in the form of a cat, the handle and spout with blue scrollwork, 10.4cm high; 15.9cm across, crossed swords mark in blue enamel, incised Japanese Palace inventory number N=292-/ W to both (restoration to tip of spout) (2). Estimate £25,000 - 35,000 (€31,000 - 43,000)

Provenance: The Royal collections of Saxony, Japanese Palace, Dresden;

Joseph A. Wilby Collection, sold by Sotheby's London, 2 March 1994, lot 5

The Japanese model for this teapot was selected from the collection of Augustus the Strong in the Holländisches Palais at the end of 1729; one of a group of over 200 examples of Oriental porcelain that the French merchant, Rudolph Lemaire, was allowed to choose to be copied by the Meissen manufactory. The archival documents concerning the order for Lemaire, whose plan to sell the Meissen copies in Paris as Oriental collapsed when his patron, Count Carl Heinrich von Hoym, was arrested, have been published in detail by Claus Boltz (Hoym, Lemaire und Meißen..., in Keramos 88 (April 1980), pp. 3-101). These show that the Japanese model was selected on 24th December 1729, and was subsequently listed in the 1770 inventory of the Japanese Palace under No. 7. (Boltz, p. 80).

The 1770 inventory of the Japanese Palace records: 'Ein detto [Theé pot], mit Pagoden und goldenen Blumen, aufm Deckel eine Katze, 3¾. Zoll hoch, 4. Zoll in Diam: No. 292' [One ditto (teapot), with pagodas and gilt flowers, a cat on the cover...]; published by Claus Boltz, Japanisches Palais-Inventar 1770 und Turmzimmer-Inventar 1769, in Keramos 153 (July 1996), p. 54.

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