Rare part of a porcelain dinner service from the... Lot 73

Rare part of a porcelain dinner service from the Kaiser Wilhelm II service, comprising 12 dinner plates, 6 soup plates and an oval dish, with contoured edges in the "Neuozier" form, decorated in iron red and gold with groups of flowers surrounding in the center in a crowned rocaille cartouche the Prussian eagle centered with the monogram FR. Good condition, slight wear of the gold. Manufacture KPM, Berlin, 1892-1909. Marks on the reverse side with the kaiser's figure in blue on the cover, marks of the manufacture with the red stamp on the cover and the blue sceptre under the cover, marks of painters and years marked in blue. D_24.5 and 22.5 cm Dish: L_39 cm Provenance: this service was commissioned from the Berlin porcelain factory by Kaiser Wilhelm II (1888-1918) to be used for "standard" state meals, intended for use in all royal residences rather than being specific to a particular room or Palace. It was designed in the grand Rocaille tradition to complement the two large services that preceded it: the one commissioned by Emperor Frederick II in the late 1870s, which was also based on a service delivered to King Frederick the Great in 1781-1783. The basic molded forms, known as Neuozier, were the "new" rococo fluted basketry forms developed in the 18th century to revive and rework the "old" forms (Altozier). The service made for Frederick the Great was decorated in the same iron-red and gold palette as the present service, but with heroic and mythical scenes. To reproduce this decoration would have been a truly gigantic task when a banqueting service of this size was in production, destined to be spread throughout the royal palaces. Instead, the central cartouches were given the monogram FR painted in gold over the Prussian eagle. The design itself became popular and a variant without the central cartouche was sold by the factory. It is also interesting to note that the King of Italy ordered a similar service, adapted to the arms of Savoy in the central cartouches. Part of this service, still in the possession of the family in Huis Doorn, was exhibited at the Deutches Historisches Museum in Berlin and is illustrated in "Der Letzte Kaiser Wilhelm II. Im Exil", exhibition catalogue, Munich, 1991, p. 173, no. 23.