Set of Four Royal Copenhagen Flora Danica Porcelain Cache-Pots

18075v: Set of Four Royal Copenhagen Flora Danica Porcelain Cache-Pots
By Royal Copenhagen (Danish, founded 1775)
Height: 12cm, width: 21cm, depth: 14.5cm
This set of four cache-pots comes from the Flora Danica service by Royal Copenhagen, hand-painted with botanical studies in the eighteenth-century manner. The Flora Danica service was first commissioned in 1790 by King Christian VII, its decoration drawn from the Flora Danica botanical encyclopaedia begun in 1752. The original service was completed in 1802, and its limited production has kept it sought after ever since.
Each cache-pot is of deep, slightly waisted form, raised on a low foot, and painted with a single botanical study taken from the Flora Danica plates, the plant shown growing with its roots exposed as in the original illustrations. The Latin name of each is inscribed in script on the underside: Anemone Vahlii Horn., its small yellow flowers rising above palmate leaves; Viola canina L., with pale violet-blue flowers on slender stems; Rosa tomentosa Sm., a pink wild rose with buds and toothed foliage; and Thymus Chamaedrys L., its spikes of small rose-pink flowers. The plants are painted in soft, naturalistic tones against a white ground.
The foot and the wide upper rim are gilded, and the border below the rim is painted with pink-and-gilt panels divided by raised gilt bosses, from which pairs of painted leaves hang. Each cache-pot is fitted with two branch-form handles applied with modelled and coloured porcelain flowers — roses, asters, convolvulus and forget-me-nots — among green leaves, standing out in relief against the body.
The underside of each bears the three-wave mark of Royal Copenhagen, the factory stamp, and the model number.
$18,000