Object of the Month - Vezzi beaker
1st August 2024Today, porcelain is taken so much for granted it is hard to believe that fired china clay could ever cause the drama and political intrigue that surrounded it in the first decades of the 18th century.
When Johann Böttger oversaw the successful production of hard-paste porcelain at Meissen in Germany, the race was on in other European countries. Christoph Hunger was among those who defected from the German factory and brought the secrets of production to Vienna, where a factory was established in 1718. Two years later, Hunger could be found in Venice, working with the prosperous goldsmith, Francesco Vezzi, to establish Italy’s first porcelain manufactory since the Medici’s experimental production some 150 years earlier.
Vezzi, approaching 70 when the factory first began, passed financial control of the factory to his son, Giovanni. The transfer was not a success. By 1727 the factory was in financial ruin and the kilns were pulled down by the end of that year. The ever-duplicitous Hunger had by this time returned to Meissen and informed the Saxon authorities that the Venetian factory relied on the china clay imported from Saxony. Export of the clay was banned the following year.
With barely seven full years in production, it is little surprise that few pieces of Vezzi ever make it onto the auction market, and the slender chocolate cup featured in the British and Continental Ceramics and Glass auction on 3rd September is the first to be sold at Woolley and Wallis.
Like many porcelain objects produced across the Continent at this time, the decoration took its inspiration from imported Chinese porcelain. Painted in underglaze cobalt blue (which was the most reliable colour to fire successfully), it shows a long-necked bird perched on leafy branches. The narrow shape was designed for the consumption of the increasingly fashionable drinking chocolate, a particular favourite of Italian and Spanish nobility.
This particular cup or beaker has come from a private collection sold on 3rd September for a premium-inclusive £16,380.