Rare Meissen Porcelain Beaker and Saucer, c. 1723

A rare Meissen porcelain beaker and saucer, circa 1723, the tall flared beaker painted in iron-red camaieu, probably by J.G. Horoldt, with two Chinese figures in a garden of flowering plants and a fence with insects overhead, the saucer similarly decorated with a circular scene of a figure attacking a dragon, a phoenix and a salamander with insects and bird flying above and a clump of flowers behind within concentric double-line borders, height of beaker 8 cm, diameter of saucer 12.8 cm. Other Notes: from a very rare, early service painted in iron-red, of which the teapot, slop bowl, three beakers and saucers and three teabowls and saucers were sold by Christie's London, 28 June 1976, lots 138-143, and two other beakers and saucers were sold by Sotheby's London, 7 November 1972, lots 145 and 146. An additional teabowl was sold at Christie's London, 5 July 2004, lot 13. Horoldt is recorded as having decorated a service in red as early as 1720 (Pietsch, U., 'Johann Gregorius Horoldt', 1996, p. 38). Several pieces from the service were exhibited in Dresden in 1996 (ibid., nos. 7-12), when the decoration was attributed in part to Horoldt himself. A beaker and saucer and a teabowl and saucer are in the Carabelli collection (Pietsch, U., 'Fruhes Meißener Porzellan Sammlung Carabelli', 2000, nos. 2-3) and the slop bowl is in the collection of Jeffrey Tate and Klaus Kuhlemann, London. Another beaker and saucer from the service is in the Arnhold collection, New York (Cassidy-Geiger, M., 'The Arnhold collection of Meissen Porcelain', 2008, no. 74).