Large and Impressive Pair of Meissen Porcelain Flower-Encrusted Vases

#18327: Large and Impressive Pair of Meissen Porcelain Flower-Encrusted Vases
Meissen Porcelain Manufactory (German, founded 1710)
German, late 19th century
Height 90cm, width 43cm, depth 40cm

This pair of two-handled vases, with their covers and stands, was produced in the late nineteenth century by Meissen, the oldest porcelain manufactory in Europe. Each stands nearly a metre high overall and is encrusted from foot to finial with individually modelled flowers, fruit and insects. Flower encrustation of this kind was perfected at Meissen in the mid eighteenth century under the modeller Johann Joachim Kändler, and revived on a large scale in the nineteenth century for the international exhibitions. Every blossom was formed by hand, petal by petal, fired separately and then applied, so that a vase of this size comprises many hundreds of individual components.
The pierced covers are moulded with rocaille scrolls in pale green and rose, heightened in burnished gold and pierced between the scrolls so that light passes through. Each is surmounted by a bouquet of applied flowers — cabbage roses, carnations, striped tulips, irises, clustered primulas, asters and marigolds among them — arranged in an irregular, upward-tapering mass with foliage pushing through the gaps. Butterflies alight among the blooms.
The baluster bodies each carry an oval reserve painted with a Watteauesque scene of figures in eighteenth-century dress set in woodland. On the first, a young man in a green coat and black tricorne addresses two ladies in wide skirts of yellow and rose, one of them pointing; on the second, a woman in yellow moves forward in a dance while a couple stand together at her side. The painting is freely handled, the foliage rendered in the olive and grey tones found in Meissen landscape work of the period. The reverse of each vase is painted with a bouquet of flowers, the two compositions differing slightly, their palette answering that of the applied decoration.
The scrolling handles are moulded as broad pale green rocaille and wreathed with applied flowers, fruit and foliage, including apples, plums, lemons, figs, strawberries and a warty citron with a peacock butterfly settled on it. Beneath each handle a winged putto clings to the body, draped in blue or rose, one reaching up into the garland above. At the foot, one vase carries a second putto with a pierced basket of flowers, while the other has a maiden draped in yellow, a wreath of small blooms across her shoulders, leaning forward to fill a similar basket. Modelled beetles rest on the moulded bands beside them, one brown and black, one iridescent green and purple.
The shaped stands rest on four scrolled feet applied with flowers and butterflies. Their sides are moulded with rocaille cartouches in pink and green and painted with scattered flower sprays and insects, and the upper surface is finished with a raised gilt lip to seat each vase.
Each marked with the crossed swords of Meissen in underglaze blue, to the bases and to the feet, one base incised 'B.C' and with a single incised line to the marks.
A closely comparable pair of vases, without stands, sold at Sotheby's Paris in 2021 for €252,000.
$225,000