Centerpiece; Germany, 20th century

Centerpiece; Germany, 20th century
Glazed porcelain
Bears a stamp on the base
Measurements: 57 x 37 x 37 cm.

Glazed porcelain centerpiece, decorated on the inside with hand-painted floral motifs and adorned along the rim with large, raised mauve-colored flowers, along with foliage and applied small flowers. The profusely openwork bowl is accented with turquoise and gold glaze and rests on a stem shaped like an acanthus leaf, flanked by two child musicians. The base features gold scrollwork on a turquoise background, a central garnet-colored glass paste cabochon, and four volute-shaped legs topped with applied child figures.

The city of Dresden and its surrounding region are the birthplace of European porcelain: it was in Meissen, very close to Dresden and under the patronage of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony, that in 1708 Johann Friedrich Böttger, together with the scientist Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, succeeded in deciphering the formula for hard-paste porcelain, which until then had been the exclusive monopoly of China and Japan. The Meissen manufactory, founded in 1710, thus became the first in Europe, and its 18th-century production served as a stylistic model for the numerous workshops and decorators who, by the 19th century, had established themselves in Dresden itself, reproducing and reinterpreting these 18th-century designs to meet the demand of collectors of the time.