IMPORTANT PAIR OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY HÖCHST AND GOLDEN BRONZE APPLIQUES, circa 1748-1749 The landscape painting attributed to Adam Friedrich von Löwenfinck, the rocaille frame decoration by Johannes Zeschinger, the model attributed to Gottfried Becker. Of oval rocaille form with purple cameo decoration in the centre of a landscape in an oval medallion framed by rocaille scrolls, shells, foliage, a dragon and an eagle on the edge; restorations Marked: wheel in blue. Otto Blohm collection inventory number: OB663 H.70 cm (27 ½ in.) l.48 cm (19 in.) Provenance : Elector Johann Friedrich Karl von Ostein (1689-1763) ; Former Otto and Magdalena Blohm collection; Sale at Sotheby's London, 25 April 1961, lot 342. An important pair of Höchst earthenware and gilt-bronze wall-lights, 18th century, circa 1748-1749, the landscape painting attributed to Adam Friedrich von Löwenfick, the frame painting by Johannes Zeschinger, the model attributed to Gottfried Becker The Höchst factory was founded in 1746 by two Frankfurt merchants and a painter from Meissen, Adam Friedrich von Lowenfinck (1714-1754). They obtained a licence from Johann Friedrich Karl von Ostein (see Fig. 1), Elector and Bishop of Mainz. In order to obtain this privilege, Löwenfinck painted a series of five vases for the bishop in Fulda in 1743, decorated with the princely coat of arms and flowers from India (S. Ducret, Meissen porcelain, 1962, p. 21). For the first four years, the manufactory produced only earthenware and did not start producing porcelain until 1750, when J. Benckgraff and J.J. Ringler arrived from Vienna, thus becoming the third porcelain manufactory in the Empire after Meissen and Vienna. Our sconces are part of a set with a pair of the same model, of the same size and also decorated in purple monochrome with a landscape in the centre, now in the Museum für angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt, and a smaller pair, without the dragon or eagle and decorated with a landscape in grisaille in the centre. These six sconces are studied by Hans Reber (H. Reber, Die Kurmainzische Porzellanmanufaktur Höchst, Vol. II: Fayencen, Munich 1986, p. 108 and figs. 119 and 120 a and b). The author suggests that this set of wall lights was probably intended for the Ostein Hof in Mainz, which the Elector had built between 1747 and 1752. Hans Reber points out the similarities between these sconces and the rocaille ornamentation above the windows and pediment. He also suggests that the architects Johann Valentin Thomann and Anselm Franz Freiherr von Ritter zu Groenstein may have supplied designs to the Höchst pottery factory. The attribution to the painter Adam Friedrich von Lowenfinck developed by the author makes it possible to date these wall lights precisely before the painter's departure for Strasbourg in 1749. The Blohm collection of European porcelain and earthenware was assembled by Otto and Magdalena Blohm between their marriage in 1899 and Otto Blohm's death in 1944. Otto was born in Hamburg in 1870. His wife, Magdalena, née Matthes, was born in 1879 and grew up in Düsseldorf. Otto and Magdalena's interest in the porcelain collection was strengthened by the major exhibition at the Kunstgewerbe-Museum in Berlin in 1904. Protected during the Second World War in the basement of the Hamburg house, the porcelain and earthenware collection was sent to New York after the war, where Magdalena settled. In accordance with the wishes of Otto Blohm and his wife, the collection was sold at public auction in London in 1960 and 1961.