A Meissen yellow-ground Augustus Rex vase, circa 1730-35. Photo: Bonhams.

The squat baluster body with a flared neck, reserved with black-edged shaped quatrelobe panels, painted in the manner of Adam Friedrich von Löwenfinck after engravings by Petrus Schenk, depicting chinoiserie figures and animals in landscape settings, gilt-edged rims, 46.3cm high, A.R. monogram in underglaze-blue (restored neck). Estimate £65,000 - 75,000 (€81,000 - 94,000)

Provenance: With Otto Büel, Lucerne, by 1954;
Dr. Marcel Nyffeler Collection, Zürich, sold by Christie's London, 9 June 1986, lot 175

Literature: Mitteilungsblatt der Keramikfreunde der Schweiz 27 (1954), pl. IV, ill. 8

The chinoiserie figures on this vase are similar to those on prints by Petrus Schenk Jnr. (before 1698-1775) from his series 'Nieuwe geinventeerde Sineesen...', which comprised two sets of twelve prints and was published by the 1720s (illustrated by A.L. den Blaauwen, Keramik mit Chinoiserien nach Stichen von Petrus Schenk Jun., in Keramos 31 (1966), pp.3-18). A pair of closely similar vases - possibly originally part of the same garniture as the present lot - was sold by Paul Graupe, Berlin, 27 May 1935, lot 467; one of the pair was sold in these Rooms, 20 March 2013, lot 30.

Apart from the yellow-ground examples mentioned above, only a handful of further examples of this rare large form are recorded: a pair in the Rijksmuseum with Kakiemon-style decoration; a single example with yellow ground, reserved with panels depicting a scene after Schenk and birds with indianische Blumen; two vases with a purple ground in the Wadsworth Atheneum; and a pair with tomato-red ground (see A.L. den Blaauwen, Meissen Porcelain in the Rijksmsueum (2000), p. 229).

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