A very rare Meissen bowl, circa 1730After a Japanese Imari original, of deep quatrelobe form, painted in polychrome enamels and gilding with two scrolling peonies to the inside hanging from the rim, the exterior with a "thunder-scroll" pattern interlaced with flowering chrysanthemum and prunus branches and clouds, brown-edged rim, 19.5cm across; 8.5cm high crossed swords mark in blue enamel (restored)注脚This very rare Meissen bowl is copied after a Japanese Imari bowl in the Dresden Collection (inv. no. PO 486) and was part of the group of copies of Japanese and Chinese porcelain made for the Paris merchant, Rudolph Lemaire, that he intended to sell in Paris as Oriental originals.The Japanese original - one of only two in the collection of Augustus the Strong - is included in a list of Japanese and Chinese porcelain taken from the Elector's collection in the Holländisches Palais (later known as the Japanisches Palais) in Dresden on 24th December 1729 to serve as models for the Meissen manufactory (published by Claus Boltz, Hoym, Lemaire und Meißen - Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Dresdner Porzellansammlung, in Keramos 88 (1980), p. 95). These pieces were chosen by Lemaire without the Elector's knowledge but with the permission of Count Hoym, the Manufactory Commissioner. Over 4500 Meissen copies of both Japanese and Chinese porcelain were subsequently confiscated from Hoym's palace in 1731 and returned to the Japanese Palace.The Japanese original is recorded in the inventory of the [Japanese] Palace begun in 1721, as well as in the 1770 inventory: 'Zwey gemuschelte detto {Spühl Napf), inwendig mit erhabenen kleinen Zierrathen, und braunen Rändern, 3 3/4 Zoll tief, 7 1/2 Zoll in Diam., Nr. 10' [two lobed ditto {rinsing bowls), inside with small raised decoration, and brown rims] (quoted by Boltz, p. 95). Two lists by J.G. Höroldt of 1731, also published by Boltz, record that one Meissen copy of the Japanese bowl was made to serve as a model for the painters after the original was returned to the Japanese Palace. These models were usually incised with the inventory number of the Asian original (due to the restoration on the present lot, it is not certain whether it ever had an incised 10). Another Japanese example is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, published by John Ayers et al., Porcelain for Palaces (1990), no. 212.