An important Meissen porcelain cup and saucer with Lotte and Werther
Painted with portraits of Lotte and Werther on faux breche d'Alep marble ground. Blue crossed swords mark with star, blue 4 (cup), blue dash (saucer). Scratches, the lid associated but matching. H of cup 6.2, D of saucer 13.2 cm.
The portraits after drawings by Daniel Chodowieckis, circa 1775 - 80.
Goethe's novel "The Sorrows of Young Werther" was presented at the Leipzig Book Fair in September 1774. These idealised portraits of Werther and Lotte come from a later edition, presumably that of 1775. The Berlin engraver and draughtsman Daniel Chodowiecki's depiction of the two fictional characters has been reproduced again and again to this day.
Provenance
The Hiemisch collection.
Literature
"Illustrated in Schmidt, Literaturporzellane im Wetzlarer Lottehaus, in: Keramos 185/2004, p. 61, illus. 5.
Cf. Müller-Scherf, Werther-Porzellane in ""Goethes Lotte. Ein Frauenleben um 1800"", in: Keramos 181/2003, p. 41, illus. 1, a cup and cover with the same motifs on cobalt blue ground in the Goethe-Museum in Düsseldorf, from the Anton- and Katharina-Kippenberg-Stiftung. Cf. also cat. Triumph der blauen Schwerter. Meissener Porzellan für Adel und Bürgertum 1710 - 1815, Dresden-Leipzig 2010, no. 482."
Exhibitions
Das Lottehaus, Wetzlar, April 2004 - April 2005.