A pair of Meissen hard-paste porcelain tea caddys with covers. They are decorated with a pale turquoise ground and four quatrefoil reserves painted with polychrome scenes of on land/sea-scapes. They have circular flat lids, also decorated with a polychrome landscape, surmounted by gilt pinecone finials. The necks of the caddys are cylindrical and slightly tapered. The edges and necks of the caddys and the borders of the reserves are also finished with plain gilt banding.

As the Meissen factory grew the artists began to turn not only to Chinese precedents but to introduce European motifs of decoration – landscape and harbour scenes derived from seventeenth-century French and Dutch paintings, European flowers and hunting and genre scenes became more common. This service combines European scenes with a delicate turquoise-green ground which may have been intended to resemble Chinese celadon porcelain in its hue.

Queen Caroline led the way in the acquisition of German and Chinese porcelains but Meissen porcelain was also mentioned in the accounts of Princess Augusta. In 1755, for example, a bill was charged by John Taylor, a china and glass dealer on Pall Mall, for packing and transporting Dresden china to Kew Palace.

Text adapted from The First Georgians; Art and Monarchy 1714 – 1760, London, 2014.