LARGE PLATE FROM THE SWAN SERVICE FOR HEINRICH... Lot 1047

LARGE PLATE FROM THE SWAN SERVICE FOR HEINRICH COUNT OF BRÜHL Meissen, c. 1738-39, model by Johann Joachim Kändler. Modelled in the form of a shell with a pair of swans, in a body of water overgrown with reeds, next to a heron with fish in its beak and another heron in flight. The offset shell relief of the flag surmounted by the alliance coat of arms, Brühl and Kolowrat-Krokowksky and surrounding Indian flowers between three radially placed floral branches. Gold border of alternating one long and two short vertical strokes. Underglaze blue sword mark, incised size number V and former mark with four concentrically placed triangles for Elias Grund. D 42 cm. Rim with small restoration. Provenance: - Heinrich Graf von Brühl (1700-1763), Pförten Castle and owned by descendants until after World War II. - Acquired from Antique Porcelain Co, Ltd, 149 New Bond Street, London. - Monheim Collection, Aachen. - by succession into present private ownership, Switzerland. Heinrich Graf von Brühl (1700-1765), Prime Minister of the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland August III and since 1739 supreme director of the porcelain manufactory, had already commissioned Meissen porcelain in large quantities in earlier years, with the privilege, personally granted by the Elector, of not having to pay for it. The Swan Service is still the most famous service of the manufactory and with its elaborate figurative centrepieces also the most magnificent. Despite the prominent alliance coat of arms, the occasion for this elaborate commission was not the wedding to the Polish Countess Anna Franziska Kolowrat-Krakowsky, but the obligation as cabinet minister to perform the representative duties of the Elector and King and to arrange banquets for a large number of illustrious guests from the European royal and princely houses. The majority of the service, comprising approximately 2200 pieces, remained in the possession of the Brühl family at their family seat, Pförten Castle in Silesia, until the end of the Second World War. As early as 1880, the family loaned pieces to the museums in Dresden and Berlin, while other parts came into the hands of collectors. Pförten Castle and almost the entire service were destroyed by Russian troops in 1945. The remaining service parts wandered into public and private collections all over the world. (Pietsch, Schwanenservice 2000; Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, From Barlow to Buggel, in Keramos 119 (1988), pp. 64-68, on the graphic models for the tableware). In his so-called "Feierabendarbeiten", in which he kept a record of all his models, Kändler had noted down five different sizes of bowls made for the Swan Service between April and July 1738, each marked with the sizes from 2 to 6. To 4 sizes of these bowls belonged warming bells which Johann Friedrich Eberlein added only in 1740.