A Meissen porcelain dinner plate from the service for Tsarina Elisabeth Petrovna of Russia
Gotzkowsky model with pierced rim. The well decorated with a single woodcut style flower, the four segments of the lip with large polychrome rocaille cartouche motifs with scale pattern decor in enamel blue and iron red shell motifs surrounding finely painted Continental and exotic landscapes. Blue crossed swords mark, dreher's number 20. D 24.5 cm.
1744/45, this model by Johann Friedrich Eberlein.
Claus Boltz was the first to research the history of this service, which was actually two services, in 1970. Work began on the first of the two services, based on the Gotzkowsky model, in February 1741 during the reign of Anna Leopoldovna (née Duchess Elisabeth Katharina Christine zu Mecklenburg-Schwerin). The first service is characterised by the repeating motif of a flowering sprig of indianische blumen in the centre. The second service was begun in 1744 upon the request of the succeeding Tsarina Elisabeth, who in August 1744 complained that she did not possess a single complete service of Meissen porcelain (Pietsch, p. 59). This service reiterated the previous model with very few amendments, but exchanged the Oriental style flower for the then fashionable woodcut style, using a different motif for each item. Despite being ordered by two different patrons, both services have gone down in history of porcelain as the "Elisabeth service".
Literature
For more on the history of this service cf.: Boltz, Meißner Service mit dem Relief "Gotzkowsky erhabene Blumen" in der Eremitage in Leningrad, in: Manufaktur Echo 13/1970.
Cf.: Pietsch (ed.), Meißen für die Zaren. Porzellan als Mitel sächsisch-russischer Politik im 18. Jh., Munich 2004, p. 58 ff.
A rare large tureen from this service is housed in the MAK in Cologne under inv. no.: E 1419 (in: Beaucamp-Markosky, Europäisches Porzellan, Cologne 1980, no. 135).