MEISSEN Porcelain chocolate cup and saucer with... Lot 128

MEISSEN Porcelain chocolate cup and saucer with polychrome decoration of the arms of France and Poland in two shields surmounted by a royal crown in a rotating landscape of seaside animated by merchants and sailors, the interior 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. D. The handle broken and missing, gold wear. From the service given in 1737 by August III of Saxony, King of Poland (1696-1763) to Marie Leszczynska (1707-1768), Queen of France (1725-1768) This chocolate cup 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 de Saxe, half-brother of Augustus III, to be taken to France. The merchant-mercier Jean Charles Huet, agent of the Meissen factory in Paris, was paid in September 1737 for his role in the delivery of the service. Augustus II of Saxony had already sent in 1728 to Cardinal de Fleury, Louis XV's tutor in his younger years, 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, claimed. In 1737, Augustus III's gift to the daughter of the former king of Poland was probably also motivated by the wish 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, during the auction sale in Paris of the collection of Albert Gérard, were sold in one lot the chocolate box of this service, a teapot and its lid, four various cups and their saucers (Sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, collection of the late Mr. Albert Gérard, Me Chevallier and Me Duchesne, 18-23 June 1900, lot 357, only the chocolate box reproduced). The chocolatier, three tea bowls and four saucers reappeared in 2017 and entered the collections of the Château de Versailles (Christie's sale, Paris, April 13, 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, November 29, 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, November 25, 2009, lot 81). One of the two teapots is in the Gilbert collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The other pot has recently entered the collections of the Château de Versailles (Cherbourg sale, December 5, 2021). The milk jug, two chocolate cups and a saucer recently went on public sale (Etude Binoche et Giquello, 6 June 2018, lots 109 to 112). Finally, the Bailleul-Nentas study in Bayeux sold a tea bowl and saucer on July 14, 2021, also acquired by the Château de Versailles. 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 catalog Fragile Diplomacy, Meissen Porcelain for European Courts, ca. 1710-63, New Haven, 2007, pp. 155-156