the lids with blossoming branches, surmounted by seated large birds as handles and flanked by small yellow birds, the baluster each with a multi-coloured parrot smelling the blossoms, as well as robins, butterflies, caterpillars and beetles, the lid, baluster, and foot encrusted with guelder roses and also green leafy branches with guelder roses, porcelain, polychromed, height: 74 cm, minor restorations
Meissen, underglaze blue crossed swords 2nd half 19th cent., former no. 58, model by Johann Joachim Kändler ca. 1760 (Ru)

Lit.:
Triumph der blauen Schwerter, Meissener Porzellan für Adel und Bürgertum 1710- 1815, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 2010, p 136, ill., p 347, cat. no. 411, ill.; “In May 1739, inspired by Chinese porcelain, Kändler first covered the entire surface of a coffee and tea service in small blossoms, so that it resembled a guelder rose." Around 1741/42, additional floral forms came into use, perhaps for the décor of lidded vases decorated with the portrait of Louis XV. and August III. found in the Porcelain Collection, Dresden (Zimmermann 1926, plate 43).
Large vases are documented in the inventory of Frederick the Great, dated December 1745, as "1 mantelpiece epergne with the largest sort of guelder roses" (SächsHStA Dresden, fol. 160r). Especially by candle light, the substance of the vases appears to dissolve and the sculpted blossoms and applied birds seem uncommonly life-like. Guelder rose vases are particularly expensive to produce and hence are only found at important courts, such as that of the Tsars but also at some German ruling houses.
Frederick the Great became especially fond of them and in 1762 ordered several epergnes for the decoration of the New Palais at Potsdam, in particular for the Blue Chamber of his apartments there. The vases were placed on consoles between the wall panels, others on the mantelpieces. One flute vase ‘1 Fuß 10 Zoll hoch’ (52 cm) cost him 400 Taler, a similarly sized large lidded vase 540 Taler.

Lit.:
Ernst Zimmermann, Meissner Porzellan, 1926, plate 43, large guelder rose vase of 1741 and 1742 by Kändler for King Louis XV.
Lit.:
Jean Louis Sponsel, Kabinettstücke der Meissner Porzellan-Manufaktur von Johann Joachim Kändler, Leipzig 1900, p 144, guelder rose vase with a half-length portrait of August III.;