MEISSEN Porcelain tea bowl and saucer with polychrome... Lot 103

MEISSEN Porcelain tea bowl and saucer with polychrome decoration of the arms of France and Poland in two shields surmounted by a royal crown in a rotating seaside landscape animated with merchants and sailors, the inside of the cup with gold background and the saucer with gold background, the reverse of the saucer decorated with flowers in the Kakiemon style. Marked : crossed swords in blue 18th century, circa 1737. H. 4,6 cm, D. 12,7 cm. Very slight gold wear inside the bowl, on the rim of the bowl and on the rim of the saucer. From the service offered in 1737 by Augustus III of Saxony, King of Poland (1696-1763) to Marie Leszczynska (1707-1768), Queen of France (1725-1768) This tea bowl and saucer are part of an important chocolate and tea service offered in March 1737 by the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, August III to Marie Leszczynska, Queen of France. The service was placed in a red leather case decorated in chased gold and consisted of twelve tea bowls, twelve saucers, twelve chocolate cups with their holders, a rinsing bowl, a chocolate pot, a milk pot, two teapots and a teapot holder, a sugar box and a tea box. It was entrusted to Maurice of Saxony, half-brother of Augustus III, to be taken to France. The merchant-mercier Jean Charles Huet, agent of the Meissen manufactory in Paris, was paid in September 1737 for his part in delivering the service. Augustus II of Saxony had already sent in 1728 to Cardinal de Fleury, Louis XV's tutor in his youth, an extraordinary and very important gift of Meissen porcelain, most certainly to facilitate the future succession to the Polish throne, to which Stanislaus I Leszczynski, the father of the Queen of France, was claiming. In 1737, Augustus III's gift to the daughter of the former King of Poland was probably also motivated by the desire to make a gesture of goodwill and the desire to re-establish more serene relations with the French Court. At the same time, Augustus III wrote to Cardinal de Fleury to restore his ambassador to France. In 1900, at the auction sale in Paris of the collection of Albert Gérard, the chocolatier of this service, a teapot and its lid, four cups and their saucers were sold in one lot (Sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, collection of the late Mr. Albert Gérard, Me Chevallier and Me Duchesne, 18-23 June 1900, lot 357, only the chocolatier reproduced) The chocolatière, three tea bowls and four saucers reappeared in 2017 and entered the collections of the Château de Versailles (Christie's sale, Paris, 13 April 2017, lots 163-167). The Château de Versailles also acquired the rinsing bowl and was offered a chocolate cup without saucer in 2017. Another chocolate cup and saucer are held in the collection of Michele Beiny Harkins and a third with saucer from Seaton Dalaval Hall, owned by Baron Hastings, went on sale in London in 2009 (Sotheby's, London, 29 November 2009, lot 157). A fourth tea bowl and saucer were part of the Hoffmeister collection, exhibited in Hamburg in 1999 (Sammlung Hoffmeister, vol. II, no. 334, then Bonhams sale, London, 25 November 2009, lot 81). One of the two teapots is in the Gilbert Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It is not possible to determine if it is the one from the Albert Gérard collection. Like our milk jug, it bears a discharge mark for 1756-1762. The milk jug, two chocolate cups and a saucer recently went on sale (Etude Binoche et Giquello, 6 June 2018, lots 109 to 112) For a study of this service and its role as a diplomatic present see Selma Schwartz and Jeffrey Munger, edited by Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, exhibition catalogue Fragile Diplomacy, Meissen Porcelain for European Courts, ca. 1710-63, New Haven, 2007, pp. 155-156.