A Fine Pair of Vienna Style Covered Cylindrical Vases, on square footed socle bases.
The vases are panelled in purple, claret and sky-blue embellished with raised gilt borders framing classical panels with scenes including Jupiter and Callisto, Bacchus and Ariadne. The vases have applied satyr head handles and gilt acorn finials.
The Vienna Porcelain Manufactory was founded in 1718 only eight years after Johann Friedrich Bottger and Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus had succeeded in unearthing the secret of Porcelain Manufacture for August the Strong, Elector of Saxony. On May 25, 1718, Emperor Karl VI signed a “special privilege” awarding Claudius Innocentius du Paquier the exclusive right to produce porcelain in the Austrian crown lands. Production being almost exclusively for the imperial household and the court nobility.
During the rococo era, Empress Maria Theresia placed the company under imperial ownership and it was during this period that the manufactory began to produce the famous rococo genre scenes after Watteau. Under the management of Conrad Sorgel von Sorgenthal, the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory achieved an international reputation for its neo-classical style.
After the wars with France brought the manufactory to the brink of ruin, the Vienna Congress at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century gave porcelain from Vienna a renewed upswing. Many important personalities of the time, including Czar Alexander I of Russia and the King of Prussia, were guests of the manufactory and porcelain from Vienna became highly regarded once again.
By appointment only.
