A BÖTTGER STONEWARE POLISHED, ENGRAVED AND MONOGRAMMED TEABOWL AND SAUCER

Böttger stoneware cut with the royal AR monogram are extremely rare, and the monogram indicates that the present lot was made for Augustus the Strong. As it lacks an inventory number from his porcelain collection held in the Japanese Palace in Dresden, it is very probable that Augustus used it as part of a highly important gift. Ulrich Pietsch speculates that the Böttger stoneware teapot now in the Wark Collection, Florida, which is cut with the crowned AR monogram, may have been part of Augustus the Strong’s gift to his cousin, King Frederik IV of Denmark, in 1711 (U. Pietsch, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, 2011, p.60). The gift was presented to the Danish king by Woldemar Freiherr von Löwendahl, Marshal of the Saxon Court, and the items forming the gift appear to have been dispersed in the 19th century. It is very possible that the present lot may also have formed part of this gift.