Limited Edition Vase, Flower tendril

It's certainly no secret that collecting porcelains, especially those from East Asia, was one of Elector Augustus the Strong's many great passions. His envoys brought a fresh set of precious items back to the Saxon court whenever their travels took them to the Far East. The art-loving Prince filled his "Japanese Palace" in Dresden, in which he hoped to live out his dream of a building devoted exclusively to porcelain, with Chinese vases from various dynasties, sumptuously decorated vessels and sculptures.

The China craze that manifested itself in the years following the Manufactory's foundation in 1710 saw decorative schemes featuring stylised plants and mythical beasts hold sway at Meissen. The generous range of overglaze colours developed by Johann Gregorius Höroldt in the course of the 1720s meant it was now possible to replicate the patterns from the Prince's collection of oriental wares on pieces made at Meissen. It was a style of painting known as "indianisch" despite its having nothing to do with the country of India. The somewhat misleading name derives from the first maps of the world produced in the early 16th century, on which everything to the east of India was referred to as "India Meridionalis" and "India Superior". It was thus common parlance in the 18th century to label all porcelains imported from China or Japan as being indianisch or "from India".

The re-issue of the vase "Flower tendril" as part of the 2021 series of Limited Editions, a shape with origins in this early period, clearly reflects how assiduously Meissen's artisans apply themselves to such East Asian prototypes. In the manner so typical of indianisch painting, the vessel is covered by whimsically stylised floral creations meticulously drawn by pen. The cordial pink ground is daubed on by hand, its archlike layout underscoring the vessel's curvature. In a departure from traditional indianisch painting, porcela