Meissen Teapot and Cover of early silver shape, Circa 1725-28.

An extremely important Meissen KPM Chinoiserie Teapot and Cover, of bombe form, painted on each side by Christian Friedrich Herold with Chinese figures at various pursuits and in conversation, on one side an elaborately attired chinaman with a pointed hat holds a flaming torch aloft whilst bending down to stroke a child who rides out on a white pony with a rich purple damasked saddle cloth, behind runs a young child his arms akimbo holding three balloonlike kites and a hankerchief which fly in the wind, in front a female figure wearing a long sleaved purple gown and topknot headdress holds a fan, and coaxes the horse with a fly whisk, on the other side three figures, including a widow wearing a veil, a richly gowned lady and another with a pointed hat, variously sit round a table and are in conversation and eating from bowls, to one side is flowering vegetation and to the other an alert exotic bird shrieks from a ball finial beside a potted berried bush and a teapot, insects and butterflies whirl above. Within shaped gilt laub und bandelwerk cartouches with rich Bottger-lustre strapwork panels edged with puce and red scrolls, the scrolled handle with double barbed finger rests, scrolled thumb piece and kicked lower terminal, decorated with a series of very fine red lines between gilt bands, the gold griffin headed spout modelled very naturalistically its eyes picked out in a rare thick and lustrous overglaze blue enamel (see the foreword) above and on the neck of the griffin spout is arranged a fine spray of Indianishe blumen, the domed cover with a running frieze of further Chinese figures, one shooting an unsuspecting bird with a blowpipe, another tinkling bells infront of a mother and child, amongst a formal garden, between thick gold borders.

Marks: K.P.M. with crossed swords beneath in underglaze blue to the underside of the base and the gilder’s numeral 38 to the base and inside the cover.