A Meissen red Boettger stoneware bust of Emperor Aulus Vitellius
Hollow bust of the Emperor facing right. Unmarked. With a gaping firing crack on the right and a smaller one on the back, the left shoulder reattached, rim chips. H 10.5 cm.
1710 - 11, modelled by Paul Heermann.
Paul Heermann (1673 - 1732) worked as a court sculptor and antique restorer for the Saxon king from 1705. Several bust-models for the moulding in red Böttger stoneware are attributed to him. Ingelore Menzhausen mentions the portrait bust of an unknown man from the Museo Archeologico in Venice as the model for the head called Emperor Vitellius. Heermann probably intended "following a princely custom of the Renaissance, originally to design the series of the twelve first Roman emperors in Böttger stoneware", which Menzhausen found confirmed in the inventory of 1711. There, under no. 43, it says "Ein Kayser Kopff" and others under nos. 71 to 81 (cat. Meissen Frühzeit und Gegenwart. In honour of Johann Friedrich Böttger, Dresden 1982, p. 95).
Provenance
Former Korthaus Collection, Frankfurt.
Christie's London, 18th September 1999, lot 218.
The Renate and Tono Dreßen Collection.
Literature
Illustrated in cat. Blütenlese. Meißener Porzellan aus der Sammlung Tono Dreßen, Munich 2018, p. 212, pl. 1.
Cf. Rückert, Meissener Porzellan 1710 - 1810, München 1966, cat. no. 824.
Cf. Syz/Jefferson Miller II/Rückert, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, Vol. I, Washington 1979, cat. no. 14.
Cf. Bursche, Meissen. Steinzeug und Porzellan des 18. Jahrhunderts. Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin, Berlin 1980, cat. no. 26.
The example in the Porzellansammlung Dresden under inv. no. P.E.2381 (cat. Meißen Frühzeit und Gegenwart. Johann Friedrich Böttger zu Ehren, Dresden 1982, illus. I/50).
Two further examples in Eberle, Das rote Gold. Die Sammlung Böttgersteinzeug auf Schloss Friedenstein Gotha, Gotha 2011, no. 9 f. The example under inv. no. St 2 b also with a gaping firing crack.