Bonhams
Lot 78
Plat ovale en porcelaine de Meissen du service au Cygne, circa 1742A Meissen oval dish from the Swan Service, circa 1742Modelled by J.F. Eberlein in low relief with swans swimming among bullrushes, a heron to the left and another in flight overhead, the shell-moulded gilt-edged border painted with the arms of Brühl and Kolowrat-Krakowska and with scattered indianische Blumen, a gilt-edged bulrush handle on either side, 33cm across, crossed swords mark in underglaze-blue, incised letter N (right handle replaced)Footnotes:The Swan Service was ordered in 1736 for the director of the Meissen manufactory, Heinrich Graf von Brühl (1700-1763). A manufactory report of May 1736 states that: 'Ein neues Taffel Servis vor des H. Geh. Cabinet Minister von Brühl Excellenz von ganz neuer Façon verlanget worden sei' [a new table service was ordered for His Excellency the Privy Cabinet Minister von Brühl of entirely new design]. The pieces are painted with the marriage arms of Brühl and his wife, Maria Anna Franziska von Kolowrat-Krakowska (1712-1762), who married in April 1734.The service originally comprised over 2,200 pieces, of which most remained in the family's possession until the Second World War. From around 1880, pieces were lent to museums in Dresden and Berlin or passed to collectors, so that by 1900 only 1,400 pieces remained at the family's Silesian seat, Schloss Pförten. These remaining pieces were either destroyed along with the castle, or looted, at the end of the Second World War.Other examples of this shape are in the Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburg, the Muzeum Narodowe, Warsaw, the Museum für angewandte Kunst, Cologne and the Ernst Schneider Collection in Schloss Lustheim, near Munich (illustrated in U. Pietsch (ed.), Schwanenservice - Meissener Porzellan für Heinrich Graf von Brühl (2000), p.155, no. 25). An unpainted version is in the collection of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg. One dish sold at Christie's London, 12 May 2010, lot 80, and one in these Rooms, 26 November 2014, lot 158.See Pietsch, op. cit., for a comprehensive discussion of the service, and Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, From Barlow to Büggel, in Keramos, 119 (1988), pp. 54-68, for a discussion of the graphic sources.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
