Description

A rare Meissen ewer and octagonal basin.  Each finely painted with a landscape scene of polychrome Watteauesque figures against a grey monochrome park setting, depicting on the basin Harlequin behind a monument, a seated lady and child, a gentleman and two ladies standing and two dogs in the foreground, the ewer with two ladies and a gentleman and a seated lady by a sculpture on a pedestal, the basin with a pedestal with foliate ornament flanked by flower swags at the base, both painted with scattered flowers (Holzschnittblumen), fine gilt trellis borders edged with foliate scrollwork to the rims, the reverse of the basin with further flowers and scattered blooms,
the basin: 33cm across, crossed swords marks in underglaze-blue, impressed 27 to basin, gilt I. to ewerThe figures of the seated lady and the gentleman on the basin are from a print by Pierre-Alexandre Aveline (1702–1760) after Jean-Antoine Watteau’s ‘L’Enseigne de Gersaint’.