Meissen Königliche Porzellanmanufaktur Lot n° 62

Dinner plate from the "Japanese dinner service" for King Frederick II. Porcelain, colored overglaze decoration, gold rim. Model with curved fluted rim. Yellow mosaic edge, framed by fine purple rocailles. The riser shelf painted enamel blue. A landscape island with a turtle-like animal in the center. Blue Swords mark, impressed number 56. Restored rim chip between 4 and 5 o'clock, some glaze rubbing. D 24.4 cm. Meissen, 1762/63, the model by Johann Joachim Kaendler. During the Seven Years' War, the Prussian King Frederick II visited the Meissen modeller Johann Joachim Kaendler to personally inform him of his wishes for a service with his own drawings. In 1961, Otto Walcha published a memorandum by Kaendler dated November 11, 1762, which refers to the Japanese service. It shows that Frederick II gave Kaendler a French silver plate as a model, but also provided precise details of the decoration: "As far as the painting is concerned, this service should be painted yellow with mosaic on the rim and the inside edge should be somewhat glinde as usual with beautiful blue, so that the yellow is highlighted. For each bowl and plate, Your Royal Majesty has ordered that an Indian animal and bird be ground in beautiful proportions, such as camels, elephants, renoceros, panther-animals, baboons, monkeys, ostriches, casuaries, various pappagoyas and other Indian animals and birds (...)". This note was countersigned by Frederick II. The "most bizarre of all" service was intended for the Chinese House in Sanssouci Park, completed in 1764, and originally consisted of 96 plates and 72 dessert plates as well as four tureens and a dozen serving dishes. It is no longer possible to reconstruct how many of these were completed before the Peace of Hubertusburg. The plates and bowls are now scattered in numerous museums and collections, some of them only in fragments. Most of the pieces are in the possession of the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation. Literature Cf. cat. Königliche Eleganz Preußische Pracht, 250 Jahre Königliche Porzellanmanufaktur Berlin KPM, Düsseldorf 2013, no. 6. Cf. Walcha, Frederick II's last important porcelain order in Meissen, in: Keramos 12/1961, p. 31 ff. Cf. Beaucamp-Markowsky, Rhinoceros and Panther Animal. A rediscovered tureen from Frederick the Great's "Japanese Service" in Meissen. Erich Köllmann on the occasion of his 75th birthday, in: Keramos 94/1981, p. 17 ff. The pieces in the Schloss Charlottenburg Collection have been published several times, for example in Wittwer, "hat der König von Preußen die schleunige Verferttigung verschiedener Bestellungen ernstlich begehret" Friedrich der Große und das Meißener Porzellan, in: Keramos 208/2010, p. 64 ff. Cf. cat. Triumph of the Blue Swords. Meissen porcelain for the nobility and bourgeoisie 1710 - 1815, Dresden 2010, no. 299. S.a. Lempertz Berlin auction 1169 on April 24, 2021, lot 1, another dinner plate from this service, formerly Erich von Goldschmidt-Rothschild collection, deceased. Christie's Geneva on May 9, 1988, lot 164, then Renate and Tono Dreßen collection.