Decorative vase

Decorative vase The vase was made around the middle of the 18th c., probably in the porcelain factory in Meissen. The Meissen factory was established in 1710 by Augustus II the Strong as the first porcelain factory in Europe and it still operates today. The above vase was made around the middle of the 18th c., in the period of the Meissen factory's greatest prosperity, when the sculptor Johann Joachim Kaendler worked there as a modeller. He was hired in 1731 and began a new period in the factory's history as an outstanding creator of Rococo sculpture in porcelain. At that time, large-scale production of figurines, genre and mythological figural groups, decorative vases, and artistically decorated tableware sets began. The above openwork vase of milky white porcelain has a pear-shaped belly and neck and a round foot. It is decorated with naturalistic, plastically modelled wild and garden flowers scattered over the entire surface of the belly and neck. It is set on a round pedestal decorated on both sides with painted bunches of flowers and twigs, framed with semi-plastically modelled rocaille, enclosed on the sides in fully plastically modelled twigs with flowers. The edges of the vase and the base are emphisised with gilded stripes. A distinctive feature of the vase is the deliberate slanted curve of its foot and the upper surface of the base. Vases such as this one were intended to be placed in a particular way: high up (e.g., on consoles, on furniture cornices) and tilted towards the viewer. Barbara Trojnar