A Meissen porcelain dessert plate from the Schwerin Service
Pierced basketweave border with forget-me-not reliefs alternating with garlands in gilt edged surrounds. The centre decorated with fruit in a gilded cartouche. Blue crossed swords mark, impressed no. 22. Minor firing cracks to the border, a minute chip to the basal ring. D 24.2 cm.
1762/ 63.
On 24th January 1781, his birthday, Frederick II gave away two important services that he had commissioned from the Meissen manufactory: The so-called Möllendorff service in honor of his general and comrade-in-arms, Wichard von Möllendorff (1724 - 1816), and the extensive dessert service for Major General and Chief Stable Master Friedrich Albrecht Count von Schwerin (1717 - 1789). The latter dessert service, ordered in September 1762 in anticipation of the end of the war and to which this plate belongs, was probably one of Frederick II's most demanding commissions placed during the Seven Years' War.
Provenance
From the property of a Prussian aristocrat.
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. 62 ff.
Cf. also cat. Berliner Porzellan 1763 - 1850, Münster 2006, no. 3.