A RARE GERMAN IZNIK STYLE FAIENCE VASE AND COVER

Description:

Berlin, Cornelius Funcke, um 1710
H. 40,5 cm
Octagonal baluster vase. Faience, brick-red earthenware with a rare turquoise glaze, painted all over with stylised Ottoman sailing ships in cobalt blue and manganese, interspersed with light ochre-coloured motifs of coral reefs. Lid knob rest, stand chipped, minor hairline cracks and chips.
South German Collection
The faience maker Cornelius Funcke founded his own faience manufactory in Berlin in 1699. He developed new shapes and decorations, some of them in unprecedented colours. The octagonal shape of this vase is exemplary of the early faience production of Funcke's Berlin manufactory, combining European Baroque stylistic features in the form with technical and artistic influences from the Orient - turquoise-coloured glaze and decoration from Ottoman ships. The decoration was influenced by 17th century Iznik ceramics. In 1712, Funcke boasted to King Frederick I that he was able to produce vase sets with red body like the Dresden porcelain manufactory. The ship decoration was at the forefront of the rare decorations. The forerunner of the turquoise blue background was a kind of moss green, and one of the first vessels in turquoise blue is dated 1701.
Comparable pieces to the present vase in terms of form and decoration can be found in the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin (pair of lidded vases, around 1701; inv. no. 1937,44 a,b), the Hetjens Museum in Düsseldorf (lidded vase, around 1700, formerly Otto Riesebieter Collection, inv. No. R 228), in the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin (flute vase, inv. no. II 71/484 B), in the Museum für angewandte Kunst in Cologne (lidded vase, inv. no. Ov 245) and in the Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten in Potsdam (pair
Lit. Christiane Keisch und Horst Mauter: Kat. "Herrliche Künste und Manufacturen (...)", Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin, 2001, p. 54-55, fig. 60, fig. 62-63.