A Meissen yellow-ground plate from the 'Gelbe Jagdservice', circa 1733-34
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A Meissen yellow-ground plate from the 'Gelbe Jagdservice', circa 1733-34
Reserved with a lobed panel in the centre painted with a phoenix and three sprigs of indianische Blumen, three quatrelobe panels around the brown-edged rim painted with flowering branches, 22.8cm diam, crossed swords marks in underglaze-blue, incised Japanese Palace inventory numbers N=148-/ W, impressed Dreher's mark of a cross within a circle for Johann Christoph Pietzsch (small areas of stacking wear to yellow ground, very small haircrack to rim) (2)
Sold for £12,500 inc. premium

Footnotes

  • This service is the only Meissen dinner-service known to have a coloured ground. It was ordered around 1730 by Augustus the Strong, and later became known as the "yellow hunting service", because of the similarity of the ground colour to the livery of the Saxon court parforce huntsmen (U. Pietsch/ C. Banz. Triumph der blauen Schwerter (2010), p. 96). According to a delivery specification (published by C. Boltz, Japanisches Palais-Inventar 1770, in Keramos 153 (1996), p. 91), the service was delivered to the Japanese Palace in 1734 on the instruction of Augustus III, and originally consisted of 82 pieces including 39 plates. The 1770 inventory of the Japanese Palace records under 148: 'Ein Tafel Service, mit gelber(ner) Glasur und weißen Schildern, worein bunte Blumen und Vögel gemahlt... [a table service with yellow glaze and white panels in which are painted coloured flowers and birds...]. A note in the inventory records that one plate was broken in two on 2 September 1777 at a dinner for the King of Prussia in Christinenstadt (Boltz, ibid., p. 76).

    A closely similar plate as well as a tureen and fluted dish from the same service are exhibited in the Royal Collection in Dresden (Pietsch / Banz, ibid., p. 97). Two plates were sold in the Johanneum Duplicate Sale, Dresden 1920, lots 145 and 146; a plate from the Deane Johnson Collection, Bel Air, was sold by Sotheby's New York, 9 December 1972, lot 67; another by Christie's Geneva, 9 May 1988, lot 63; another plate was sold by Christie's London on 14 July 2006, lot 84.

    Another very similar plate from the same service is in the Dr. Ernst Schneider Collection in the Lustheim Castle (A. Schommers/ M. Grigat-Hunger, Meißener Porzellan des 18. Jahrhunderts (2004), no. 52), and further plates are in the Arnhold Collection, New York (M. Cassidy-Geiger, The Arnhold Collection of Meissen Porcelain (2008), nos. 185a-b), and in the Hoffmeister Collection (D. Hoffmeister, Meissen Porzellan des 18. Jahrhunderts: Sammlung Hoffmeister (1999), vol. II, no. 272).

Category: Decorative Arts / European Ceramics

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