
Sebastian Kuhn
Department Director
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Department Director

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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.
The service originally comprised over 2,200 pieces, of which most 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 collectors, so that by 1900 only 1,400 pieces remained at the family's Silesian seat, Schloss Pförten, with 800 pieces in other locations. These remaining pieces were either destroyed along with the castle, or looted, at the end of the Second World War.
Other examples of cutlery handles are in the Klingenmuseum, Solingen, and in the Dresden Porcelain Collection (illustrated in U. Pietsch (ed.), Schwanenservice - Meissener Porzellan für Heinrich Graf von Brühl (2000), p.181, no. 63).
See Pietsch, op. cit., for a comprehensive discussion of the service, and Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, From Barlow to Büggel, in Keramos, 119 (1988), pp. 54-68, for a discussion of the graphic sources.