A Meissen porcelain platter from a dinner service for Tsarina Anna Leopoldovna of Russia
Gotzkowsky model with pierced rim. Decorated in the centre with birds perching on a large Oriental style flowering sprig. The four segments of the rim with large rocaille cartouches with blue scale-pattern ornament and shell motifs in iron red surrounding finely painted landscapes. Blue crossed swords mark, dreher's number 20 and dreher's mark // to the basal ring for Johann Gottlieb Geithner, red lacquer inv. no. (cyrillic) ГЧ 2644. D c. 30.5 cm.
C. 1741/42, model by Johann Friedrich Eberlein, 1741.
Claus Boltz first researched the history of the service, which is actually a history of two services, in 1970. Work on the first of the two services based on the Gotzkowsky model was begun as early as February 1741, during the reign of Anna Leopoldovna (born Elisabeth Katharina Christine Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, 1718-1746). This service is characterised by the identically repeated motif of an Oriental flowering sprig in the centre. The second service, which was produced from 1744 onwards at the express wish of the following Tsarina Elisabeth (born Yelizaveta Petrovna Romanova, 1709-1761), who "still complained in August 1744 that she did not have a complete service of Meissen porcelain" (Pietsch, p. 59), takes up the model with very slight deviations: There is now a woodcut style flower in the centre, which is individually designed for each service piece. Despite the different patrons, both services have gone down in porcelain history as the "Elisabeth Service".
Provenance
Former Russian Imperial Collection, St. Petersburg, then State Hermitage.
Röbbig, Munich.
Private collection Westphalia since 1987.
Literature
For more on the history of this service see Boltz, Meißner Service mit dem Relief "Gotzkowsky erhabene Blumen" in der Eremitage in Leningrad, in: Manufaktur Echo 13/1970.
Cf. also Pietsch (ed.), Meißen für die Zaren. Porzellan als Mittel sächsisch-russischer Politik im 18. Jh., Munich 2004, p. 58 ff.
Cf. also Beaucamp-Markowsky, Europäisches Porzellan, Köln 1980, no. 135, for the large tureen from this service in the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln, inv. no. E 1419.