Jim Peake
Head of Department
Lot 13
A very rare Zechlin gilded and engraved Royal double portrait goblet and cover, circa 1733-35
19 November 2025, 10:30 GMT
London, Knightsbridge£1,000 - £2,000
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A very rare Zechlin gilded and engraved Royal double portrait goblet and cover, circa 1733-35
The round funnel bowl with a solid beaded base, cut bands of thumbnail facets to the lower part, decorated with the profile portrait busts of King Frederick William I and Sophia Dorothea of Prussia, within a crowned diaper cartouche surmounted by eagles and framed by fourteen circlets containing the monograms of their children, flanked by foliate branches, all picked out in gold, set on an elaborately curt and faceted baluster stem and domed foot, the domed cover with a tall beaded baluster finial also cut with gadroons and facets picked out in gilding, 30.7cm high (2)
Footnotes
Exactly the same double portrait medallion of Frederick William I (1688-1740) and Sophia Dorothea (1687-1757) surrounded by the monograms of their children is seen on a Potsdam goblet and cover illustrated by Robert Schmidt, Brandenburgische Gläser (1914), pl.30, no.5 and on another Potsdam goblet illustrated by Sabine Baumgärtner, Porträtgläser (1981), p.20. fig.7. Baumgärtner highlights how one of the monograms is in fact that of their daughter-in-law, Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern, who married Crown Prince Frederick (later Frederick the Great) in 1733. The portrait of the King was based on a ducat coin minted for many years, itself based on a 1715 medal by the Berlin die cutter Friedrich Marl. The portrait of the Queen was based on a 1706 medal by E Hannibal, made on the occasion of their wedding.