877 - Meissen Königliche Porzellanmanufaktur, zugeschrieben

Meissen Königliche Porzellanmanufaktur, zugeschrieben A porcelain snuff box depicting a military encampment With vermeil mounts. Relief decoration. Soldiers and courtly figures on landscape islands around the sides, with a courtly group in a park on the lid, after Watteau. Unmarked. The glaze around the rim of the base restored, the interior gilding retouched. Height 4; width 8; depth 6.5 cm. Attributed to Meissen, around 1750, the decor possibly by Johann George Heintze. Born in Dresden around 1706/07, Johann George Heintze began his training as a painter’s apprentice at the Meissen Manufactory on 24 June 1720, according to Rainer Rückert, and became Hoeroldt’s “first boy” after the latter’s arrival. From 1731 onwards, he was already responsible for painting finely rendered figures and landscapes. He used a special formula for his purple pigment and designed elaborate gold cartouches, known as “Zierate”. His numerous after-hours commissions made him the highest-paid painter. In the 1740s, he expanded his repertoire to include battle scenes and Watteau figures but increasingly suffered from gout and other unspecified illnesses. His relationship with Hoeroldt deteriorated considerably, perhaps also because from 1745 onwards he began to compete with him for the position of first painter, or head of the painting department. He was repeatedly accused, perhaps by Hoeroldt among others, of undertaking unauthorised private work, and was eventually convicted on these grounds and, in 1748, banished by Heinrich Count Brühl to Königstein Fortress, where porcelain continued to be sent to him for decoration. In 1750, he succeeded in escaping from Königstein together with Johann Gottlieb Mehlhorn. The two made it as far as Prague, where they were arrested, but escaped once again. Their trail then disappears; they are said to have travelled via Vienna and Holíč to Breslau. Count Brühl nevertheless continued to attempt to have them apprehended through diplomatic channels. The last documented address for Heintze dates from 1751, with “Monsieur Wegely” in Berlin. Nothing is known about the rest of his life. Provenance Private collection Westphalia. Literature For Heintze, see Rückert, Biographische Daten der Meißener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, Munich 1990, pp. 155-156.