LONDON, ENGLAND.- The gift commissioned from Meissen by Queen Maria-Josepha and believed to have been given by her to her husband King Frederick-Augustus II, Elector of Saxony, King Augustus III of Poland, to mark their 25th wedding anniversary in 1745 is the unique centrepiece of a remarkable display of royal European porcelain to be presented at The International Ceramics Fair Seminar in London. The annual fair, now in its 24th year, takes place at the Park Lane Hotel, in Piccadilly, from June 16-19, 2005.

Titled ‘Royal Splendour’, the display will be mounted on the stand of leading ceramics dealer Brian Haughton, the founder of the fair, who has chosen 14 pieces to illustrate the richness, grandeur and style of each of the four represented European and English manufactories whose output was the zenith of 18th century production.

“From our extensive research, it is evident that the piece, an armorial chafing dish, cover and stand, was the personal gift from Queen Maria-Josepha to her husband to mark their silver wedding anniversary,” Brian Haughton said. “Records show that the queen gave explicit instruction for Meissen’s pre-eminent designer J.J. Kaendler to be involved in the commission and the choice of such a fine cabinet piece, but clearly a domestic object whose shape echoed those of silver pieces of the period, is not a coincidence, particularly when one considers that silver is term for the 25th wedding anniversary. The fact that it was made from the finest porcelain of the period and the rank of the giver and receiver underlines the domestic symbolism of the gift as a covert reference to both domestic comfort and harmony.”

An emblem of unchanging love in a royal marriage and also a tour de force of ceramic art, the piece is redolent with symbolism. Using the juxtaposition of specific flowers and painted cartouches, Kaendler and the decorators not only allude to the bond of love between two people but also to royal taste and patronage. Even the triumphal palm fruit finial, like the borders of the chafing dish, is decorated in gold, which is a visual metaphor that extends the language of flowers to encompass Virgil’s hemstich ‘Omnia Vincit Amour; et nos cedamus Amori’ which translates as ‘Love conquers all; let us all yield to love’. Royal commissions from Meissen are rare survivals and this is an object which is complex in meaning and its decoration is a work of art of the highest calibre of craftsmanship and luxury.

It is not know when the chafing dish left the Royal collection. It was latterly in the collection of their Graces The Dukes of Westminster.

Each of the 14 pieces in the display offer a glimpse of the lavish intrigue of life centred around the splendour of the courts of 18th century Europe.

A very fine Meissen chinoiserie teapot painted by Christian Freidrich Herold, one of Meissen’s finest enamellers, deserves mention as an illustration of the artist’s ability to paint in imitation of the Chinese and Japanese manner so loved by Westerners of the period. Similarly, an important Meissen tankard is painted with large Chinese figures by Johann Ehrenfried Stadler in a striking interpretation of the chinoiserie style.

Another Meissen jewel is a small arched tea caddy decorated with royal deer-hunting scenes which interact with each other. Deer were reserved purely for the king and his royal circle to hunt, and the use of this subject matter as decoration makes an interesting social statement and shows an understanding of the social levels of hunting at that time.

Among the most amusing pieces in the exhibition – and illustrating the superb skill of the modeller’s art – are the two hares modelled by J.J. Kaendler. With unsurpassed skill, Kaendler created a timeless, lifelike sense of alert reaction as the buck hits the ground with his front legs and rises up on his hind legs to sound the alarm to his colleagues. Similarly, a seated Harlequin, modelled by J.F. Eberlein, again captures a sense of suspended motion as he teases a cat seated at his feet as he lifts a dove from its cage and out of the cat’s reach. The Harlequin’s face is decorated with moons, symbolic of patience. In a third figure group the sense of drama reaches a crescendo with Columbine feeding a parrot perched in a tree above. However, the bird is about to be scared away by the scowling Harlequin as he rushes into the scene and begins to create discord and mayhem.

Delicate ornithological designs and some of the best flower painting to be achieved at the Meissen factory are displayed on a pair of beautifully decorated plates from the Frederick the Great service. The plates, which are similar to the ‘Northumberland’ animal service at Alnick Castle, were once owned by the great American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst

Away from Meissen, a monumental pair of fearsome French faience models of a seated lion and lioness come from a very old private English collection. In the 18th century, they would have been placed inside the entrance of a country house to act as guards of the home.

English pieces in the exhibition include a Chelsea peach-shaped cup and saucer, a very rare survival in its perfect state and beautifully typifying Nicholas Sprimont’s advertisement, which appeared in the Daily Advertiser on the 9th January 1750 which spoke of ‘a great Variety of pieces…in a Taste entirely new’. Slightly earlier and from the early stage of the incised triangle period at Chelsea, is an exciting sauceboat based on a silver form and bearing all the ‘hallmarks’ of a Sprimont design embracing the full meaning of the natural theme of the rococo period.

Two elegant and unusual small Bow vases and covers are decorated with designs taken from the Ladies Amusement, the first decorated with birds, insects and caterpillars after a design by Charles Fenn, the second painted in a wonderfully naturalistic style and palette with a crane and a swan after engravings by Robert Hancock.

A further pair of early Bow vases and covers dating from the period 1748-51 are marked with incised or ‘Scratch R’s’ and are fully decorated in the Imari palette. They are without doubt some of the most important pieces of this rare early type of Bow to be offered for sale in recent years and come from an old private English collection.

A full-colour illustrated catalogue of the display will be available from Brian Haughton Antiques at the fair.

The 24th International Ceramics Fair & Seminar is the most celebrated and important ceramics event of the year at which a group of outstanding ceramics dealers gather to present the finest antique and contemporary porcelain, pottery and glass for sale on the market today. Its strength is in genuine connoisseurship and its concentration of top dealers, collectors and museum curators who support each other and annually generate a flow of new ideas, research intelligence, information and commerce within the ceramics world. The fair also enables collectors to meet museum curators and other academics personally and provides the knowledge and safe environment for new and old buyers to purchase top quality items that have been strictly vetted for authenticity by teams of specialists. A further feature is a renowned series of lectures, given by scholars from around the world, which are open to all.