Demi Cup F&M7 and Blue scrolled N over Dresden

by Chris
(Battle Creek, MI)

Demi Cup F&M7 and Blue scrolled N over Dresden:- Hello!!! I am looking for some help in identifying another demi cup and saucer backstamp. I purchased this cup and saucer in a box lot. I have been on some other forums (before finding this site). And have received several "opinions" and am just looking to determine what it is that I really have as far as backstamp.

Impressed in the saucer is an F&M7.

The F is faint so I guess it could be an E. Then there is a fancy scrolled capital N over the word Dresden. I think the F&M7 may be a Fischer and Mieg, blank saucer and then painted/decorated by "N".

I am wondering what the scrolled N stands for. Some opinions are that it is the rarer blue N of Derby cira. 1770 and painted in Dresden. But others dispute that information as they say Derby had other companies closer to them to purchase their blanks from so why would they get a blank from Fischer & Mieg. And some others feel there is no way Derby would have purchased a bohemian styled blank to paint/decorate.

I would love to identify this scrolled N and what Dresden under it really means. On the bottom of the cup there is only the scrolled N and the word Dresden and not the F&M. Thanks for all your help!! I wish I would have found this site earlier in my journey!!

Thanks!!

Chris

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Reply by Peter (admin)

To:- Demi Cup F&M7 and Blue scrolled N over Dresden

Hi Chris

You are most welcome.

I am somewhat behind in answering these submissions at the moment, but I know you had this one and another really interesting one (the jewel encrusted one).

You speeded up the process by sending your queries via my expert service, so I know you had a ker-ching moment with the French Sevres style jewelled cup and saucer. So well done!

This one is interesting to publish because it shows just how wayward some commenters can be.

Bearing in mind I do not consider myself any type of expert on European porcelain, but to me this looks quite obviously like a late 19th Century Dresden studio, hand-painted on whiteware, from where, who knows or cares? It is not transfer print or enhanced transfer printed. It is a typically small Dresden paint studio, whose mark I don't recognise. If anyone else does, please shout.

There were hundreds of small Dresden studios, many lost to the records now. I am not sure whether the N pottery mark indicates the name of the small Dresded decorating studio, or it is following the German fashion of the time to mark expert wares with the Naples mark (I have no idea why German exports often featured the Italian N mark, but feature it they did).

Someone trying to link it with Derby porcelain was something that got a train of thought going in my head. I am not an expert, but here's what went on in my mind.....

“Painted by Derby cira. 1770”???? {*pained expression on the face*}. That’s like saying, ‘me and my pet monkey ate a banana on the moon for lunch today’.

That’s truly out to lunch!

Derby is and always has been a maker and never, as far as I know, ever a decorating studio, reduced to buying blanks from other makers.

They were, some say, the first ever porcelain maker in England (1745). A true pioneer of English porcelain making and were real forerunners in developing porcelain bodies in the 18th century. Incidentally, they did this sterling work at a time when clever businessmen like J Wedgwood, were fastidiously avoiding (like the plague) the expensive and technically difficult porcelain slips in favour of good old honest creamware (the body that made his fortune).

To call Derby decorators is somewhat like saying the Queen is making a great career in show business. It misses the point entirely.

Why would they buy blanks from anyone, let alone cart them from across the Great Hungarian Plain on a cart?

Whoever said that needs to be quietly taken away and given some happy pills (then shot!) – or dragged across the Hungarian Plain from a cart)."

Sorry for the stream of consciousness, but I do love my English china.

Peter (admin)