With chinoiserie decoration between bands of strapwork ornament in schwarzlot with gold highlights. The eight-sided form is flattened, giving a clear front and back.
The Preisslers were a family of decorators or hausmaler who worked on glass and porcelain in the service of the Counts Kolowrat-Liebsteinsky in Kunštat (Kronstadt) in eastern Bohemia. They worked largely in black (schwarzlot), iron-red and gold on Asian and European porcelain and on Bohemian glass. They were documented as Kolowrat serfs working from the last quarter of the 17th century to the 1730s.
Octagonal glass basin with the arms of Kolowrat,
The Umĕleckoprůmyslové Museum, Prague
Their work was described in an illuminating series of letters from Tobiaš Hanuš between 1729 and 1732 in which he noted that Preissler (surely Ignaz as Daniel would now have been well into his 90s) decorated two hundred and eighty-five porcelain and twelve glass objects in schwarzlot (black monochrome) and gold, and iron-red and gold. He further stated that he mostly painted chinoiseries (Indijanische Figuren und landschaften) but also ‘difficult poetic subjects’ (Poetische Muhesame). This flask is clearly an example of the Indijanische Figuren he mentions. We can further associate the decoration of this piece with the Preissler workshop by comparison to an octagonal glass basin with the arms of Kolowrat, originally from Reichenau Castle, their family seat, now in The Umĕleckoprůmyslové Museum, Prague.
A number of similar flasks are recorded in various sizes with both chinoiseries and classical decoration, ours is one of the smallest. For a pair of flasks of 16 cm height from the Lanna collection in the Umĕleckoprůmyslové Museum, Prague see Brožková 2009, p. 162, no. 55.
Condition:
The stopper fits loosely but seems to be original
References:
Brožková 2009
Helena Brožková (ed.), ‘Daniel a Ignác Preisslerové, Barokné malíři skla a porcelánu, Prague Museum exhibition Catalogue, 2009.
E & H Manners 2024
E & H Manners, Exhibition: Decorators of Ceramics and Glass, Independent, Itinerant and the Hausmaler, (June 2024), pp.46-75
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