Punch bowl; faience
Rörstrand Manufactory, c. 1765

The shape of this large earthenware punch bowl is reminiscent of a wooden vessel made by a cooper, placed on a boat-shaped dish. On the edge of the dish are vines in relief. Toward the edges, these vines detach from the sides, forming handles towards the upper edge of the punch bowl. Bunches of grapes and vine leaves add to the decoration. The dish is adorned with roses, and the almost flat lid is topped by a finial shaped like a lemon with a branch and leaves in relief. The lid is further decorated with flowering branches in polychrome colours dominated by shades of yellow.

The punch bowl was created at Rörstrand, which was one of two faience manufactories that saw the light of day in Sweden in the eighteenth century.¹ It was founded in Stockholm in 1726 under the supervision of Johann Wolff, a German porcelain and faience maker who had also been one of the driving forces behind the founding of the Store Kongensgade Faience Manufactory in Copenhagen in 1722.

In the beginning, Rörstrand worked with a series of distinctive patterns and a blue underglaze decoration which prevailed during the manufactory’s first decades in existence. Only later, around 1760, did they begin to use other colours for their extensive production, which included objects such as tureens, table-top trays, dishes, plates, jugs, stationery, etc.

The David Collection owns eleven objects from Rörstrand, including this punch bowl, which is now regarded as a particularly magnificent piece among the Swedish manufactory’s production.²