Portfolio Cover for a Group of Drawings showing Porcelain Vessels

Portfolio cover consisting of a folio sheet of paper, folded double. On the front cover, a sheet of paper has been attached with descriptive titles in both French and German in different hands. On the verso of this sheet is another German inscription, in yet another hand. The folio appears to be a reused sheet which was formerly part of an album. On the verso of the cover is a modern inscription in German referring to a drawing or print that was taken out and refiled under the Rembrandt School (Eeckhout). The portfolio was used to house a group of 18th-century drawings, predominantly of porcelain vessels, which were sent to Albert, Duke of Saxe-Teschen and the Archduchess Maria Christine, governors of Belgium from 1780-1790, to show the latest designs available in Paris, Vienna, and England and to choose objects for the decoration of the Chateau de Laeken (outside Brussels in the area formerly called Schoonenberg, now the Belgian Royal Palace).

Credit: Gift of Raphael Esmerian, 1961