Two Meissen porcelain dishes from a service with green mosaic borders
The well painted with naturalistic flowers surrounded by depictions of trophies and musical instruments in reserves. With green scale pattern borders. Small insects painted over minor firing flaws. D c. 24.5 cm.
1761.
In 1760, King Friedrich II ordered a service with “mathematical instruments” from Meissen for Jean-Baptiste Boyer Marquis d´Argens (1703 – 1771). The service was decorated after his own designs. The same relief motifs were used for the two services with green and red scale-pattern borders ordered in the two subsequent years. The elaborate reliefs became known as “Prussian musical design”. We do not know today how extensive the green bordered service was originally. It is known to have passed into an English private collection in around 1840, and in 2006, 155 items from it were purchased at auction in England by the Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg. Individual pieces from this service still appear occasionally on the market.
Provenance
Acquired from Heinz Reichert, Munich, in 1979.
Private collection, Lower Saxony.
Literature
Cf. 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. 52 ff.
Cf. cat. Triumph der Blauen Schwerter. Meissener Porzellan für Adel und Bürgertum 1710 - 1815, Dresden 2010, no. 293.