Lot 1019 Dα

After the death of his father, Augustus the Strong, in Warsaw in 1733, Frederick Augustus II. (1696 - 1763) became Elector of Saxony. In the same year he ordered a revision of the already richly filled court silver collection, which contained at least six extensive services, some consisting of several hundred pieces (cf. Arnold p. 31). Some of the earlier sets were smelted down by Frederick August II, but in return new services were ordered. The following generations quite obviously continued the expansion of the silver chamber: the second of our two pots was ordered around 1780 by Frederick August's grandson, Elector Friedrich August III, who used the same monogram from 1763 onwards.

The Dresden goldsmith families Ingermann and Schrödel, who had repeatedly produced court jewellers since 1724, are inseparably linked with the redesign of the court silver holdings. Carl Christian and Friedrich Christian Schrödel were apparently twin brothers who both became masters shortly after each other, and jointly succeeded their father Carl David in office. Both lived in the same house and both died in 1810.

In 1789, the head kitchen master and court finiancial director Melchior Heinrich von Breitenbauch had a new inventory of silverware compiled at the Dresden court. The "Churfürstl.-Sächßl. Silber-Kammer-Inventarium" lists in Volume 2, Chapter III, Section 9 "An Silbernen Thee und Cafe Zeuge" also "Zweÿ große glatt rounde Cafe oder Milchkannen ohne Bäuche, inwendig vergoldet (...) mit FA im Schilde"; among them also our "No. 1" and "No. 4" with the weights in Mark, Lot, Quent and Pfennig as indicated in the engraving.