Of cylindrical form, painted with a continuous chinoiserie gardenscape and one lone Chinese figure near the handle. The rim and a line around the base in tarnished silver and with a zig-zag pattern near the foot that is often found on Du Paquier porcelain of this early period.

Lehner-Jobst (Chilton 2009) has shown that these small tankards are intended for vermouth. She points to a record of six wermuth Kriegl listed in the 1749 account book as having been sold to Count Esterhazy for 15 Florins, and there remain three tankards of this smallest size in the collection today.[ii]

Schloss Esterhazy, Eisenstadt

A set of six tankards of this same small size, now in the Vimercati Sanseverino Collection, came from the Princes of Oettingen-Wallerstein, Schloss Harburg. These were originally from a set of twelve that were listed in a 1738 inventory of their townhouse in Vienna as ‘Zwölf Wermuth Krügel 6 fl.’[iii]

Vermouth was prepared with herbs, in particular absinthe (wermut in German) and was considered a healthy drink which could be consumed every day.[iv] Before the late 18th century, herbal and wormwood-infused wines were mostly consumed as apothecaries’ remedies for stomach ailments and digestion, because bitterness was closely tied to therapeutic health. In the 18th century, vermouth transitioned from a medicinal tonic into a fashionable social drink.

Condition:
Slight wear rubbing to the silver border.

Provenance:
Ernesto & Magdalena Blohm Collection
Sold Christie’s, London, 27 June 2005, lot 7
Purchased from E & H Manners at the International Ceramic Show in June 2006
Patrica Hart Collection

Literature:

Schmidt 1953
Robert Schmidt, Early European Porcelain as Collected by Otto Blohm, (F. Bruckmann Verlag, Munich, 1953) Page 59, Cat No. 59, colour plate 18

References:

Chilton 2009
C. Lehner-Jobst in Meredith Chilton, ed.: Fired By Passion, Viennese Baroque Porcelain of Claudius Innocentius du Paquier, (Melinda and Paul Sullivan Foundation for the Decorative Arts, Arnoldsche 2009)

Sanseverino 2025
Gonzalez-Palacios, Alvar, Andreina d’Agliano, Giovanni de Girolamo, et al: Arte e Porcellane Europee nella Collezione Vimercati Sanseverino / European Art and Porcelain in the Vimercati Sanseverino Collection. Livorno: 2025

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[i] Presumably a reference to Ernesto Blohm although it does not correlate with the numbering we have found in any of the catalogues.

[ii] Chilton 2009 , vol. II, p. 737.

[iii] Chilton 2099 vol. III, p. 1261, no.173 & Sanseverino 2025, p. 230-231.

[iv] Andreina d’Agliano in Sanseverino 2025, p. 230 no. 51.

Price: £9,500