A Meissen porcelain tea bowl and saucer from the service for Christian VI of Denmark - image-1
A Meissen porcelain tea bowl and saucer from the service for Christian VI of Denmark - image-2
A Meissen porcelain tea bowl and saucer from the service for Christian VI of Denmark - image-3
A Meissen porcelain tea bowl and saucer from the service for Christian VI of Denmark - image-4
A Meissen porcelain tea bowl and saucer from the service for Christian VI of Denmark - image-1A Meissen porcelain tea bowl and saucer from the service for Christian VI of Denmark - image-2A Meissen porcelain tea bowl and saucer from the service for Christian VI of Denmark - image-3A Meissen porcelain tea bowl and saucer from the service for Christian VI of Denmark - image-4

Lot 668 Dα

A Meissen porcelain tea bowl and saucer from the service for Christian VI of Denmark

Auction 1159 - overview Cologne
13.11.2020, 09:30 - Decorative Arts incl. the Renate and Tono Dreßen Collection
Estimate: 6.000 € - 8.000 €
Result: 5.625 € (incl. premium)

A Meissen porcelain tea bowl and saucer from the service for Christian VI of Denmark

The display side of the tea bowl decorated with the crowned conjoined C6 monogram flanked by palm fronds and indianische blumen, the reverse with a finely painted merchant navy scene within a purple lustre cartouche. The well of the saucer painted with the large coat of arms of the Kings of Denmark against a blue drapery, beneath a crown and hung with the Order of the Elephant. Blue crossed swords mark, 1. in gold, both basal rings incised /. H 4.1, D 7.4, D saucer 12 cm.
Circa 1725 - 26.

Ulrich Pietsch mentions that the delivery of this gift to Christian VI (1699 - 1746) took place around the year 1726. Christian VI was the cousin of King Augustus II and son of Friedrich IV, an ally in the Great Northern War. The gift was a coffee, tea and hot chocolate service and was personalised by the addition of the conjoined C6 monogram. Following Christian's death in 1746, the service passed into the estate of his wife Sophie Magdalene von Brandenburg-Kulmbach, Queen of Denmark (1700 - 1770).
The service was saved from the fire in Christiansborg palace in 1794 and was transferred for a short time to Rosenborg palace before it was sold in 1797. The auction catalogue for this sale lists 28 items from a tea service as well two wash basins, two sugar boxes, 18 tea bowls and four hot chocolate cups. This appears to have been the largest service of this era.

Provenance

Christie´s London on 1st December 1986, lot ????.

Literature

Cf. a further tea bowl and saucer formerly housed in the Hoffmeister collection (Sammlung Hoffmeister, vol. II, Hamburg 1999, no. 312, afterwards part of the collection of Said and Roswitha Marouf (Pietsch, Passion for Meissen, Stuttgart 2010, no. 74).
A further tea bowl from a north German private collection (acquired at Christie´s London on 1st December 1986), auctioned by Lempertz Cologne auction 919 on 16th May 2008, lot 45.
A further tea bowl from the collection of Klaus J. Jacobs sold in Lempertz Cologne auction 1102 on 16th December 2017, lot 4.
Cf. also: Hein/Bencard, Denmark and Saxony: Family Ties and Meissen Porcelain, in: Cassidy Geiger (ed.), Fragile Diplomacy. Meissen Porcelain for European Courts ca. 1710 - 63, New Haven-London 2007, p. 184 f.
Cf. also a tankard, presumably from the same state gift, in the De Danske Kunstindustrimuseet in Copenhagen, today the Designmuseum Danmark (in: Pietsch, Johann Gregorius Hoeroldt 1696 - 1775, Dresden-Leipzig 1996, no. 149).