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Lot 80

A Meissen plate from the 'Gelber Löwe' service, circa 1740

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

Sold for £1,875 inc. premium

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A Meissen plate from the 'Gelber Löwe' service, circa 1740

Painted in Kakiemon style with a tiger curling around blue bamboo facing flowering prunus branches issuing from a tree-stump, brown-edged wavy rim, 23.4cm diam., crossed swords mark in underglaze-blue, erased Hofconditorei (court confectionary) mark, impressed numeral (some stacking wear)

Footnotes

Provenance:
Saxon Royal Court Pantry, Dresden/Warsaw

For a comprehensive discussion of the history of the 'Gelber Löwe' service in the 18th century, see Julia Weber, Meißener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern, vol. II (2013), pp. 265-274. The 'Gelber Löwe' pattern was first produced at Meissen after a Japanese porcelain original as part of the large order placed by the Paris merchant, Rodolphe Lemaire, for copies of Asian porcelain. A large quantity of plates and dishes painted in this style were among the porcelain confiscated in April 1731 in the house of Lemaire's accomplice at the Dresden court, Count von Hoym, and subsequently sent to the Japanese Palace.

In 1739, a substantial group of 'Gelber Löwe' porcelain was removed from the Japanese Palace to the Hofconditorei, probably for use in Warsaw on the dessert table. A table service was ordered around 1739, and further deliveries continued in the 1740s. An inventory made at the end of 1764, after the loss of the Polish throne and the return of the service to Dresden, lists more than 2500 pieces with the 'Gelber Löwe' pattern.

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