PROVENANCE
  Sold in these Rooms, 15th May 1979, lot 89
  Galerie Kugel, Paris

CATALOGUE NOTE
The AR monogram mark is the cipher of both Augustus II the Strong (1670-1733) and his successor Augustus III (1696-1763), though it seems to have been used at Meissen mainly between 1725 and 1730. It is found on some of the most ambitious and largest vases made at the time. The mark has always been said to have been used on pieces intended for the Royal palaces, or as Royal gifts. However, the undeglaze-blue mark is, of course, put onto a piece before it is fired or decorated, and it is clear from surviving examples, some with firing faults, that many of these vases were in fact put to one side after firing, to be decorated some time later, presumably for less exalted clients.

In the present case, the decoration of fantastic beasts and exotically-dressed figures, drawn with clean outline in black, is distinctively after the manner of Adam Friedrich Löwenfinck, one of a distinguished family of painters at the factory, who left their employment in 1736.
The scene showing the two people drinking tea is taken from the Nieuwe geinvventeerde Sineesen of Petrus Schenk, jun. pl. 9, illustrated by A. L. Blaauwen Keramik mit Chinoiserien nach Stichen von Petrus Schenk in Keramos, 31, 1966, p. 12, pl. 9.