Product Details

A striking antique M.Z. Austria porcelain cabinet plate by Moritz Zdekauer, featuring a romantic pastoral courting scene marked “Boucher,” surrounded by delicate rose garlands and ornate gilt-accented borders. The reverse bears the recognizable M.Z. Austria maker's mark associated with the Moritz Zdekauer porcelain works at Altrohlau — now Stará Role near Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. Published porcelain-mark references date this M.Z. Austria marking period to approximately 1884–1909, when the region was part of Austria-Hungary. The factory was acquired by C.M. Hutschenreuther in 1909, after which its marking system changed. At the center is an especially attractive 18th-century-style romantic pastoral scene, with an elegantly dressed young woman and her suitor seated together in a garden landscape. The decoration is visibly marked “Boucher.” François Boucher was one of the defining painters of the French Rococo and became particularly famous for idealized pastoral scenes of fashionable shepherds, shepherdesses and romantic courtship. I would not advertise this as an original François Boucher painting or an original Boucher autograph. The correct selling language is that the porcelain carries a Boucher-marked decorative scene / image after or in the manner of Boucher. That keeps the important searchable Boucher connection without making an unsupported attribution. The central scene is framed by an intricate repeating ornamental border, followed by a wide field of delicate pink, rose, yellow and green floral sprays, giving the plate the elaborate decorative appearance that made European cabinet porcelain popular around the turn of the century. Approximate diameter: 7.5 inches.