A Berlin KPM porcelain plate from the service made for Friedrich Ehrenreich von Ramin
Model no. 189. Finely decorated with Continental birds, insects, foliage and a central bouquet. Blue sceptre mark, pressnummer 3, incised I. Minor chips to the basal ring. D 24 cm.
1768.
This service with naturalistic birds and a blue rim is one of the first ten dinner services that King Frederick II commissioned from his manufactory for a specific purpose. The service was delivered to the recipient on 21st December 1768. Dag Nabrdalik succeeded in identifying the recipient as Friedrich Ehrenreich von Ramin (1709 - 1782). The latter entered the Prussian military service at the age of 16, where he made an officer's career in the infantry. In 1767, Frederick II appointed him governor of Berlin. He was considered a close confidant of the king.
Most of the service was discovered in buried boxes during a manoeuvre by the National People's Army of the GDR in the 1960s, and was subsequently preserved and exhibited in the Demmin Regional Museum. Only a few pieces made it into the market, such as this plate as one of 24.
Provenance
Private collection, Rhineland.
Literature
For more on this service see Nabrdalik, Das Berliner Tafelservice für Friedrich Ehrenreich von Ramin – describing an "etched dinner service for 24 persons" decorated with "naturalistic birds and blue lace borders" given as a gift by Frederick the Great to the Governor of Berlin, in: Keramos 221/2013, p. 117 ff.