A MONUMENTAL PAIR OF BLUE JAPANNED TERRACOTTA VASES

These vases are related to a group imitating Chinese wares, long thought to have been produced in the early 18th Century and only recently re-attributed by Samuel Wittwer in his thesis about different types of lacquer vases (see M. Kopplin, Schwartz Porcelain: Die Leidenschaft für Lack und ihre Wirkung auf das europäische Porzellan, Münster, 2003, pp. 237-249). As no records of such vases can be found before the 1840s (though several appear in 1840s Prussian Royal purchase ledgers), Professor Wittwer speculates that this type of vase was produced in Berlin around that time to cater for an elite group of collectors.

Related examples can be found at Schloss Charlottenburg in Berlin and the Neues Palais in Potsdam and the BASF Lacquer Museum in Münster; others were sold from the collections of the Earl of Iveagh at Elveden Hall, Christie's house sale, 22-24 May 1984, lots 2333-2336, and at Christie's, London, 7 July 2005, lot 347.