Footnotes

Provenance:
Anon. sale, Sotheby's London, 14th November 1995, lot 113;
Purchased in the above sale

The Swan Service was ordered in 1736 for the director of the Meissen manufactory, Heinrich Graf von Brühl (1700-1763). A manufactory report of May 1736 states that: 'Ein neues Taffel Servis vor des H. Geh. Cabinet Minister von Brühl Excellenz von ganz neuer Façon verlanget worden sei' [a new table service was ordered for His Excellency the Privy Cabinet Minister von Brühl of entirely new design]. The pieces are painted with the marriage arms of Brühl and his wife, Maria Anna Franziska von Kolowrat-Krakowska (1712-1762), who married in April 1734. For the origins and development of the service, see M. Kunze-Köllensperger, Neues zum Schwanenservice: Relief - Probeteller - Wappen, in Keramos 241/242 (2018), pp. 53-70.

The service originally comprised over 2,200 pieces, of which many remained in the family's possession until the Second World War. From around 1880, pieces were lent to museums in Dresden and Berlin or passed to private collectors, so that by 1900 only 1,400 pieces remained at the family's Silesian seat, Schloss Pförten. These remaining pieces were either destroyed along with the castle, or looted, at the end of the Second World War.

Kaendler mentions the soup plate in his work reports in January 1738: 'Für Ihro Reichs Gräfliche Excellenz den Herrn on Brühl zum Großen Service einen Suppen teller in Gestalt einer Muschel gefertiget, worinnen flach erhaben etwas Wasser zu sehen, worauf 2 Schwäne schwimmen, wie auch noch 2 Fischreiher und unterschiedliches Schilfwerk darinnen zu sehen ist' [for (Count Brühl) completed a soup plate for the large service in the form of a shell, in which some water can be seen in low relief on which two swans are swimming, as well as two cranes and various reeds] (quoted by U. Pietsch, Schwanenservice (2000), p. 157).