A MEISSEN KAKIEMON DISH

It is unclear what the very rare incised No5, illustrated right, signifies. It has been suggested that it could denote a number allocated to an experimental paste recipe, similar to those allocated to experimental pastes used to establish a solid body for the large white animals made for the Japanese Palace. Another suggestion is that it could be a pattern number.

The design closely follows a Japanese original, see John Ayers et al., Porcelain for Palaces, British Museum Exhibition Catalogue (London, 1990), p. 151, no. 121. The 1770 Japanese Palace Inventarium lists 11 Meissen dishes of this type under number 69. For similar dishes (also with the N=69 W inventory number) see Hoffmeister, ibid., Vol. I, no. 125 (and the English supplementary volume, Hamburg, 2000, p. 43 where the present lot is mentioned); see Hans Syz et al., Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection (Washington D.C., 1979), pp. 156-157, no. 85 and Masako Shono, Japanisches Aritaporzellan im sogenannten 'Kakiemonstil' als Vorbild für die Meißener Porzellanmanufaktur Exhibition Catalogue (Munich, 1973), pl. 43, for an example in the Schneider Collection, Schloß Lustheim.