Sebastian Kuhn
Department Director
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The Twinight Collection
Lot 82*
A very rare Meissen plate from the 'Saxon service' for the Duke of Wellington, circa 1819-20
4 July 2024, 12:00 BST
London, New Bond Street£15,000 - £20,000
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Nette Megens
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Ghislaine Howard
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A very rare Meissen plate from the 'Saxon service' for the Duke of Wellington, circa 1819-20
Finely painted in the centre with a view of Plauen, titled in black on the reverse 'Le Village de Plauen, près de Dresde', within a tooled gilt arched border around the well, the rim with a finely tooled gilt wreath of laurel and oak leaves bound with the green and white ribbon of the Saxon Order of Merit against a salmon-pink ground with gilt borders, 23.7cm diam., crossed swords mark and I in underglaze-blue, impressed 21
Footnotes
Provenance:
Anon. sale, Phillips London, 25 November 1999, lot 114;
The Twinight Collection
Literature:
S. Wittwer, Raffinesse & Eleganz: Königliche Porzellane des frühen 19. Jahrhunderts aus der Twinight Collection, New York (2007), no. 133
Exhibited:
Berlin, Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, Schloss Charlottenburg, Rafinesse & Eleganz - Königliche Porzellane des frühen 19. Jahrhunders aus einer amerikanischen Privatsammlung, 28 July-4 November 2007;
Vienna, Liechtenstein Museum, Die Sammlung Cohen. Porzellane der grossen Manufakturen 1800-1840, 16 November 2007-11 February 2008;
Paris, Musée national de la céramique à Sèvres, Sèvres - Vienne - Berlin, Ors et décors : 1800-1850, 26 March-13 July 2008;
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Refinement & Elegance - Early Nineteenth Century Royal porcelain from an American private collection, 9 September 2008-19 April 2009
Among the countless honours and gifts bestowed on the Duke of Wellington following the defeat of Napoleon were four porcelain table services - each of exceptional magnificence and of the highest quality - given by the kings of Prussia, France, Saxony and Emperor Franz I of Austria. The Sèvres Egyptian service was the first to be delivered in 1818, followed by the Berlin service the same year, the Meissen service in 1819 and the Vienna service the following year. The Duke of Wellington displayed the services at his London residence, Apsley House, in mahogany vitrines of his own design where they remain to this day. See W. & I. Baer, Das Tafelservice der KPM für den Herzog von Wellington (1988), pp. 36-42.
King Friedrich August I of Saxony ordered the dessert service from the Meissen manufactory in 1818. The appointment of Georg Friedrich Kersting, a student of Caspar David Friedrich, as superintendent of painting at Meissen on 1 July 1818 ensured that the decoration of the service was of the highest quality. Kersting assembled a team of painters in January 1819, including the court painter Johann Samuel Arnhold, Johann Gottlieb Böhlig, Christian Gottlieb Hottewitzsch, Ernst Görz, Johann Friedrich Nagel and Carl Schienert. The service, which consisted of 134 pieces including 105 dessert plates, was delivered in London in 1820. Another plate from the service is in the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Cologne (b. Beaucamp-Markowsky, Europäisches Porzellan (1980), no. 139.
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