A very rare and highly important Meissen Water Jug and Cover with Campaign Scenes, Circa 1740.

A very rare and highly important Meissen Water Jug and Cover, of baluster form with scrolled strap handle, painted by B.G. Haüer, on one side, with a scene after Rugendas, showing a battle scene with a cavalry skirmish in the foreground, the battle raging all around, and on the other side with a scene showing daily life on campaign, the soldiers gathered around the tents and beside the standards, before a distant landscape, each within a formal gilt scrolled diaper and lambrequin border, reserved on a white ground scattered with ‘ombrierte’ insects and ‘holzschnitt blumen’ flowers including a chrysanthemum and fritilleries, the cover with a further scene of campaign life with soldiers playing cards, encircled by double concentric ringed iron red lines, within a gold border, with gilt metal mounts.

Marks: dreher’s marks in gold, crossed swords mark in underglaze blue to the base and former’s mark of impressed YY to the inside of the footrim.

For a signed example of the work of Bonaventura Gottlieb Haüer, see the Mocenigo-Cornaro Service (Marks Collection, Chicago) exhibited at The Bard Graduate Center, New York, 2007 and listed in Maureen Cassidy Geiger, Fragile Diplomacy, Meissen Porcelain for European Courts c. 1710-63 p.226, fig 10-36 .  B.G. Haüer was arguably the most accomplished detailed painter working at Meissen in the 1740’s, on battle and campaign scenes.