Pirkenhammer Vases and Vessels

A Very Fine and Impressive Bohemian 19th Century Vienna-Style Neoclassical Revival Style Pirkenhammer Porcelain Vase - Urn. The ovoid shaped finely painted all around body with allegorical scenes representing 'The Search for Love', with one side depicting a pensive maiden seated on a rock form by the seashore, the opposite side depicting a maiden, also seated by the seashore, being visited by a love-cupid (cherub or angel), flanked by a pair of finely detailed double-headed snake-form 24 carat gilt handles centered with mask terminals, raised on an attached circular gilt, cream and blue Celeste decorated plinth. Stamped with an underglaze black printed crossed hammers mark and further mark "O.P.C.N. / RAD" to the underside. The associated and later domed cobalt-blue, cream and gilt decorated porcelain cover-lid with a cream and gilt bud finial, not original to the vase. Signed "Al Eckardt". Circa: Bohemia, 1890-1894. The porcelain painter A. Louis Eckardt is mentioned by Waltraud Neuwirth, Porzellanmaler-Lexicon (1977), Vol. I, p.251 as working from the Prager Strasse in Dresden in 1894. The Bohemian Pirkenhammer factory was founded in 1803, and in the second half of the 19th century the factory was exporting to Vienna and London. The Prikenhammer marks on these vases show they were made after 1887, and it is therefore likely this vase can be dated between the time of the introduction of the mark for this Bohemian factory, and the time Eckhardt returned to Dresden in 1894. Eckhardt is also recorded as a painter of Berlin plaques. The Pirkenhammer porcelain factory was established in 1802 in Karlovy Vary using...