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A Meissen armorial plate from the Ferrero service circa 1740
Sold for £9,600 inc. premium
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Find your local specialistA Meissen armorial plate from the Ferrero service
The wavy gilt-edged rim surmounted by the coat-of-arms, decorated with Holzschnittblumen and insects, 23.5cm diam., crossed swords mark in underglaze blue, impressed 16
Footnotes
Provenance:
Acquired in 1974
Literature:
Hoffmeister 1999, II, no. 360
Exhibited:
Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 1999-2009
From a service made for the Piedmontese statesman, Carlo Francesco Vincenzo Ferrero, Marchese d'Ormea (1680-1745), who held various ministerial posts under the kings of Sardinia, including minister for foreign affairs and of the interior, as well ambassador in Dresden, culminating in his appointment in 1742 as Grand Chancellor of the kingdom. He served both Vittorio Amadeo II, whom Augustus the Strong sent lavish gifts of Meissen porcelain in 1725 (Cassidy-Geiger 2007, pp. 209-212), as well as his son, Carlo Emmanuele I, in whose favour Vittorio Amadeo abdicated in 1730. The circumstances in which Ferrero acquired this service are not recorded, though it is tempting to speculate that he may have received the service as a gift from Augustus III, perhaps while ambassador in Dresden, or in connection with diplomatic manoeuvrings following the death in 1740 of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI, without a male heir, which led to the War of the Austrian Succession.
There are only a few pieces of this service recorded, all of them plates and dishes. The only shaped piece, a shallow bowl from the service, was sold at Sotheby's London, 28 May 2009, lot 321 (d'Agliano / Melegati 2001, no. 102). Other plates are in the Dr. Ernst Schneider Collection, Schloss Lustheim; in the Wark collection; three dishes (30cm and 38.5cm diam.) are in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan (d'Agliano / Melegati loc. cit.); one in the Museo Civico in Turin. The most recent plate to sell was at Sotheby's London, 2 December 2003, lot 30.
