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A Meissen armorial teabowl and saucer from the von Trotha service, circa 1735 image 1
A Meissen armorial teabowl and saucer from the von Trotha service, circa 1735 image 2
Lot 41

A Meissen armorial teabowl and saucer from the von Trotha service, circa 1735

5 July 2018, 14:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £6,000 inc. premium

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A Meissen armorial teabowl and saucer from the von Trotha service, circa 1735

Each painted with the arms of von Trotha, the reverse of the teabowl with a chinoiserie scene depicting three figures and a dog on a gilt scrollwork pedestal enclosing a trellis panel and Böttger lustre and edged with iron-red and purple scrollwork, the interior with indianische Blumen, gilt borders of trellis panels and foliate scrollwork to the rims, the reverse of the saucer with three sprigs of indianische Blumen, crossed swords mark (saucer) and caduceus mark (teabowl) in underglaze-blue, impressed Dreher's marks for Caspar Meißner and Johann Gottlieb Kühnel (some rubbing to gilt borders) (2)

Footnotes

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.

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