37. Rare seau à rafraîchir avec son couvercle en porcelaine de Meissen, vers 1730-35 A rare Meissen ice cooler and cover, circa 1730-35 The cooler and cover painted in Kakiemon style with flowering indianische Blumen accentuated with gilt issuing from rockwork edged with two concentric iron-red bands, the cover culminating in a brightly coloured pineapple finial, the cooler with caryatid C-scrolled handles painted in Böttger lustre, the foot decorated with conjoined iron-red spiral motifs alternating between fans of blue and yellow, 32 cm high, crossed swords mark in underglaze blue (finial restuck) (2) This rare and finely-decorated cooler is closely similar to a pair of coolers formerly in the collection of the Portuguese banker and collector, Ricardo Espirito Santo (1900-1955), who had purchased part of the collection of Count Alfred III Potocki (1886-1958) evacuated from Lańcut Castle in Poland in 1944 (published in Andreina d'Agliano et al., Brittle Beauty Reflections on 18th-century European Porcelain, 2023, cat. 18). Indeed, three such coolers are visible in an interior photograph taken in the castle in 1933 (see illustration). Count Potocki was a descendent of the Lubomirski family, who inherited Lańcut in 1629 and were later closely associated with Augustus the Strong (ibid., p. 145). A magnificent pair of Meissen Augustus Rex vases from Lańcut Castle is now in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (published by A.L. den Blaauwen, Meissen Porcelain in the Rijksmuseum, 2000, cat. 16). The earliest mention of this shape is in 1728 in a manufactory commission report that includes "two large ice pots...after an Indian model" for a Count von Watzdorf. The original finial in the form of a seated pagoda figure was replaced by an artichoke finial and slightly simplified handles at the beginning of the 1730s. Although mostly referred to as an ice pot, the shape is also listed in a French price list of 1731 as "pot a Ollio" or soup pot (see J. Weber, Meißener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern, vol. II, 2013, cat. 1). However, it seems probable that it was intended for display rather than use. Selma Schwartz has noted the similarity of the decoration on these coolers to a number of large vases, most of which are marked with the AR monogram dating to around 1730 (illustrated in Andreina d'Agliano et al., Brittle Beauty Reflections on 18th-century European Porcelain, 2023, p. 144).