A BÖTTGER RED STONEWARE BALUSTER COFFEE-POT AND COVER

The form was designed by the Dresden Court Silversmith Johann Jacob Irminger (1635?-1724) who was asked by the King in 1710 (and subsequently formally instructed in 1712) to contribute designs for Böttger’s new stoneware. He created this model of coffee-pot by fusing contemporary Baroque silver models with decoration derived from Chinese originals (the sea-monster’s head is derived from fish’s heads found on Chinese pieces). It has also been suggested that the form of Japanese sake-bottles may have influenced Irminger’s design, as well as being similar to coffee-pots made by Huguenot goldsmiths in England.1 The sides would originally have been moulded with prunus branches, but these have been removed by polishing (traces of these branches can still just be seen).  For a stoneware coffee-pot with a polished spout but unpolished sides, see Ulrich Pietsch, Early Meissen Porcelain, The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, London, 2011, p. 65, no. 6.    
 
1. By Ulrike Weinhold, curator of the Grünes Gewölbe, Dresden, cited by Maria Santangelo, A Princely Pursuit, The Malcolm D. Gutter Collection of Early Meissen Porcelain, San Francisco, 2018, p. 41 and note 27.