Exclusive Collection Jewellery Chest

The Meissen Porcelain Manufactory invariably came up with choice items of rare beauty for presentation at a succession of World Fairs. Its jewellery chest to a design by Ludwig Sturm (1844-1926) created quite a stir at the Chicago exposition of 1893. No wonder, given that it combines porcelain art of the most sophisticated kind with precious woods, silky-soft velvet, lavish bronzework and, of course, the finest of all porcelains to yield all-inclusive work of art that is veritably mind-boggling!
2013 sees this jewellery chest being faithfully reproduced in a strictly limited edition - exactly 120 years on from its world premiere. MEISSEN^® spent more than two years working on the new edition with a team of craft artisans. The relevant original moulds were borrowed from the Manufactory archive for this purpose whilst the original was cautiously taken apart so further details could be recreated.
As in the original, there are inlaid porcelain panels with neo-Classical pâte-sur-pâte decoration at the sides. The figure surmounting the piece is the Roman goddess Juno, accompanied by a peacock, her sacred or symbolic animal. It was the legendary MEISSEN^® artist Paul Helmig (1859-1939) who produced the model for the figure and probably also the herms on the front corners of the chest. The front faces of the internal drawers are embellished with white Limoges painting on a blue ground. This is subtly enriched with the most delicate of intermittent gilding.
Faithfully reproducing the intricate types of painting involved necessitated developing and learning afresh traditional Manufactory techniques that had long fallen into oblivion - most notably a technique known as "pâte-sur-pâte" in which liquid porcelain body is applied in layers. There is no knowledge of any present-day supplier of note, except MEISSEN^®, that still masters this technique and includes items finished in this way in its product range.