
Nette Megens
Head of Department, Director
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Sold for £6,000 inc. premium
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Head of Department, Director

Department Director

Head of Sale
It remains unclear which member of the von Trotha family received this service. Dieter Hoffmeister (Meissener Porzellan des 18. Jahrhunderts (1999), vol. II, no. 308) suggested as a possibility, Christoph Levin von Trotta, a chamberlain of Augustus III from 1734, and Adjutant General from 1740, whose sister, Benigne Gottlieba Trotha, was married to Ernst Johann Biron, Duke of Courland, Lord Chamberlain to Empress Anna Ivanovna of Russia. A Meissen armorial ink stand and two plates are recorded with the arms of Biron and his wife's cypher (Den Blaauwen 2000, no. 108). Hermann Jedding has suggested that the service could have been made for Friedrich Lebrecht von Trotha (b. 1702) on the occasion of his marriage to Dorothea Maria von Wulffen on 27th June 1731. The impressed Dreher's mark for Johann Gottlieb Kühnel on the present saucer, however, suggests that the service cannot date before June 1732, when Kühnel was employed as a 'Weißdreher' [white turner] (Rückert 1996, p. 79).
Another teabowl and saucer was in the Hoffmeister Collection sold in these Rooms, 24 November 2010, lot 68.