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Covered Sugar Bowl from Part Coffee Service

Made at: Meissen Manufactory (Germany)
German
about 1723, decorated about 1725–30
Object Place: Meissen, Germany

Medium/Technique Hard-paste porcelain with colored enamel and gilded decoration
Dimensions Overall: 10.4 x 10.2 cm (4 1/8 x 4 in.)
Credit Line Bequest of Forsyth Wickes—The Forsyth Wickes Collection
Accession Number65.2079a-b
OUT ON LOAN
On display at Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada, March 30, 2024 – July 1, 2024
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsCeramicsPorcelain

DescriptionPart of a Coffee Service (65.2076a-b - 65.2080). The circular sugar bowl has a domed lid and a ball finial. Painted with chinoiserie figures depicting the brewing and drinking of tea or coffee or the smoking of pipes.
Marks crossed swords with pommels in underglaze blue.
ProvenanceAbout 1725/1730, part of a larger, now-dispersed porcelain service [see note]. About 1930s/1950s, acquired by Forsyth Wickes (b.1876 - d.1964), New York and Newport, RI; 1965, bequest of Forsyth Wickes to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 24, 1965)

NOTE: Other pieces from this service, which are similarly decorated, are held by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Additional pieces were sold through Christie's, New York, November 16, 1999, lot 311. It is not known when the service was broken up, but very probably by the first half of the 20th century. The pieces sold through Christie's were said to have been acquired before World War II, and Wickes was buying between about the 1930s and 1950s.