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A very rare Meissen armorial chocolate cup and saucer from the St. Andrew Service circa 1744-45
Sold for £9,600 inc. premium
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Find your local specialistA very rare Meissen armorial chocolate cup and saucer from the St. Andrew Service
Modelled by Johann Gottlieb Ehder, of octafoil form with Gotzkowsky-Relief, the four smooth sides of the cup with the mirror monogram of Tsar Peter I within an escutcheon of military trophies surmounted by the Imperial crown alternating with Holzschnittblumen, the saucer with similar moulding and decoration, all within an elaborate formal gilt border, the saucer: 14.8cm diam., the chocolate cup: 8cm high, crossed sword mark in underglaze-blue, impressed 24 to cup, inventory numbers of the court marshall's office, Hermitage, St. Petersburg, '1496./1496a' in red lacquer (2)
Footnotes
Provenance:
Given by Augustus III of Poland and Saxony to Czarina Elizabeth of Russia in 1745;
Transferred from the court marshall's office in the Winter Palace in 1911;
State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg;
Probably sold by the Russian state circa 1928-30;
Jahn Collection, Hamburg, sold Lempertz Cologne, 12 June 1989, lot 120 (part);
Acquired in the above sale
Literature:
Hoffmeister 1999, II, no. 340
Exhibited:
Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 1999-2009
The St. Andrew service was the largest diplomatic gift of Meissen porcelain ever to be produced. It demonstrates how highly Meissen porcelain was valued in the mid 18th century, particularly in the Russian court, and hence its importance in the conduct of diplomacy. The service is thoroughly discussed by Lydia Liackhova in Pietsch (ed.) 2004, pp. 66-85, where numerous pieces in the Hermitage Museum are illustrated, and in the context of diplomatic gifts of Meissen by the same author (Liackhova 2007, pp. 73-79).
The impetus for the creation of such a lavish service for the Russian court may have been two reports in 1744 by a Saxon diplomat in Russia, Nicolaus Willibald Baron von Gersdorff, of the Czarina Elizabeth's particular enthusiasm for Meissen porcelain (Pietsch (ed.) 2004, p. 66). By the time of the second report, in August 1744, production of a service for Elizabeth had already begun, designed to reinforce the treaty between Saxony and Russia, which had been renewed in January 1744, and was of particular importance in the Second Silesian War.
The St. Andrew service comprised a table service, and what is usually described as a tea, coffee and chocolate service, to which the present lot belongs, as well as 190 figures and groups to decorate the dessert table, ninety flower vases and three mantelpiece garnitures of seven vases each. The announcement in February 1745 of the wedding of the Czarina's nephew, Grand Duke Pyotr Petrovich, to Princess Sophia Augusta Frederika of Anhalt-Zerbst (later Czarina Catherine II), caused the gift of the service to be made to Czarina Elizabeth in honour of the marriage. The pieces of the coffee, tea and chocolate service are painted with escutcheons displaying the crossed double monogram of Peter I beneath the crown, flanked by flags and trophies, one of three consecutive segments that form the necklace of the Order of St. Andrew the first born, which had been founded by Peter the Great in 1698 as the highest order of the Russian empire. The gift arrived in Russia packed in ten crates by the end of July 1745.
The 'coffee, tea and chocolate service' comprised, according to the packing list compiled in Saxony before the items were shipped: two chocolate pots, two milk jugs, two sugar bowls and covers, four bowls and four confectionary dishes, twenty-four chocolate cups and saucers, twenty-four coffee cups and saucers and twenty-six spoons. It is interesting to note that the service apparently did not include a teapot or a coffee pot, and the surviving examples show that the cups were a tall beaker with a handle, such as the present example, and a shallow cup with a handle, which would now normally be described as a teacup (Pietsch (ed.) 2004, cat. no. 126). This raises a number of possibilities: that the cylindrical pots may not have been used only for chocolate; that the service may have been supplemented by silver or other vessels for the tea, or even that it may not have been intended for use.
It appears that the main table service was separated from the chocolate and coffee service as early as 1745, and in an 1885 inventory of the Winter Palace they are listed as two services. The connection between the two was only recognised again in 1911 (Pietsch (ed.) 2004, p. 68, n. 19). Sixteen chocolate beakers and twenty-two saucers, as well as fourteen teacups and saucers, remain in the Hermitage Museum. Two chocolate cups and saucers from the service are in the Ludwig Collection, Bamberg (Hennig (ed.) 1995, no. 151), and another, also formerly in the Jahn Collection, is in the Hoffmeister Collection (Hoffmeister 1999, II, no. 339).
Saleroom notices
Please note that the cup handle is restored.
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