Art Reproductions The ``Gouden Leeuw`` before Amsterdam, 1686 by Willem Van De The Elder Velde (1611-1693, Netherlands) | WahooArt.com

"The ''Gouden Leeuw'' before Amsterdam"

Willem Van De The Elder Velde (i) - Oil On Canvas (i) - 180 x 316 cm - 1686 - (Historisch Museum (Amsterdam, Netherlands)) (i) This Meissen 'Augustus Rex' purple-ground baluster vase and cover has each side painted with a quatrefoil reserve, one side showing a chinoiserie man leading his companion on a donkey, flanked by palm trees, the other side with man and woman seated at a table drinking tea in a mountainous landscape, the reserve edged with a gilt scrollwork border, the cylindrical neck with scattered sprigs of indianische Blumen, the domed cover with panels of estuary scenes and with onion-shaped finial.The AR monogram mark in underglaze-blue is the cipher of both Augustus II the Strong (1670-1733) and his successor Augustus III (1696-1763), though it seems to have been used at Meissen mainly between 1725 and 1730. It is found on some of the most ambitious and largest vases made at the time. The mark has always been said to have been used on pieces intended for the Royal palaces, or as Royal gifts. The decoration of fantastic beasts and exotically-dressed figures, drawn with clean outline in black, is distinctively after the manner of Adam Friedrich Löwenfinck, one of a distinguished family of painters at the factory, who left their employment in 1736.