A Berlin KPM porcelain dessert plate from the service with mythological histories
With gilt openwork borders, decorated to the centre with Telemachus and Mentor. Blue sceptre mark, impressed 13 B. Minor wear to the gilt edging. Diameter 24.7 cm.
1783.
The third service that Frederick II commissioned for Charlottenburg Castle in 1783 was supposed to be based on engravings illustrating Ovid's rendition of the story of Telemachus from his Metamorphoses. However, the initial rendering of the engravings in porcelain was not carried out to the King's liking. The manufactory director Grieninger recorded: "The King commissioned a table service with illustrations from Ovid's Metamorphoses, and ordered someone to Potsdam to whom he dictated everything that he wanted painted. However, since the man who recorded the King's dictates was not versed in mythology, what he wrote was so garbled that no one was able to discern King Frederick's wishes from it." (cited from the German in: Köllmann, Braunschweig 1966, vol. 1, p. 306).
This plate shows Telemachus conversing with his teacher Mentor after an engraving from "Aventures de Télémaque, Fils d'Ulysse. Gravées d'après les Dessins de Charles Monnet Peitre du Roy par Jean Baptiste Tilliard".
Provenance
West German private collection.
Literature
Cf. plates and other moulded items in: Köllmann, Braunschweig 1966, vol. 2, pl. 141. Further pieces from the Huis Doorn foundation illus. in: Kaiserlicher Kunstbesitz, Berlin 1991, no. 105.