Blue Putti Tea Caddy

This is a tea jar made by Meissen and dating to about 1750. It is handpainted with two large underglaze blue scenes of putti playing around with grasses and flowers by their feet (one scene in the front and one in the back). One of the putti is holding a triangle, another a jug and another might be holding a shell to his ear. The smaller sides of the caddy are handpainted with a tall flower design. The original lid has two small flowers on it and a blue pinecone finial. The tea caddy body is in amazing condition with a glaze miss but the lid has seen better days and was broken in pieces and reglued with a small piece missing. It doesn't hurt the piece when on display though and still shows off nicely. The tea jar is marked by the top rim where the lid would sit and hide it. Sadly it is a messy mark and hard to make out but it's an early piece! Interestingly enough there seems to be a signature at the bottom of the piece in old German letters. It starts with a script F then an o and maybe an st but it is hard to see. It is 5.125 inches tall, 2.75 inches wide and 1.75 inches deep. Please email me for more information or other pictures.

A little extra info on the decor: It is from a pattern that Meissen produced 1765-1799. The pattern was known as "Spielende Kinder a la Raphael" and was Meissen's first foray into Neoclassicism under the direction of Dietrich. It is based mostly but not exclusively on engravings by the French painter Jacques Stella. The pattern is described in the book "Meissen's Blue and White Porcelain" published in 2006 by Schiffer. This particular example is partly based on folio 5 of Stella's print cycle (Stichfolge in German) and has not been previously described anywhere. It arrived just in time to make it into a paper on this very subject that will be submitted to the American Ceramic Circle
Journal next week. I have to slightly revise the paper now and added three more figures.