Lot 119. A rare Vezzi beaker and saucer painted by Ludovico Ortolani, circa 1725. Sold for £ 37,562 (€ 41,874). ©  Bonhams.

Decorated on the saucer with a large bird standing on grassy ground inspecting a passing insect, another bird sitting on a branch of a tree embellished with elaborate chinoiserie flowers, another bird in the sky, the cup with three different birds in sky, tree branch and standing on the ground, the cup 7.6cm high, the saucer 13.2cm diam, V a in red to the reverse of both cup and saucer (minute flat chip to edge of rim of cup).

Provenance: Brought to the UK from Vienna by a Miss Schmidt and her brother in 1938;
Acquired from the family of the above by the present owner in the 1970s.

Note: Another cup and saucer of the same shape, marks and decoration, then the property of the renowned antiques dealers, Gualtiero and Renato Schubert, is published by Francesco Stazzi, Porcellane della casa eccellentissima Vezzi (1967), pl. XLV and front cover. A third is in the Porzellansammlung, Dresden (inv. no. PE 4813), published by U. Pietsch/T. Witting, Zauber der Zerbrechlichkeit (2010), exhibition catalogue, Ephraim-Palais, Berlin, no. 68.

An exceptional vase painted by Ludovico Ortolani was sold in these rooms, 18 June 2014. The decoration of the vase and the current cup and saucer, both in colours and in stipple technique, are very similar, and suggest the same hand.