A Meissen porcelain dinner plate from the Münchhausen service
With the monk's crowned coat-of-arms on etched gold ground on the lip against purple acanthus foliage. Painted in the centre with a fanciful Chinoiserie beast resembling a kirin on a rocky landscape surrounded by insects. The rim with a purple wave pattern border. Blue crossed swords mark, dreher's no. 16. With a central star-shaped crack, wear to the glaze. D 24 cm.
1745, model by Johann Joachim Kaendler, decor after Adam Friedrich von Löwenfinck.
On April 17th 1745, Baron Gerlach Adolf von Münchhausen (1688 - 1770) thanked the King for the "magnifique royal porcelain present" (Hoffmeister 1999, vol. II, p. 602).
Münchhausen, who was born in Berlin, entered the service of the Elector of Hanover, who was also King George II of England, in 1715. In 1727 he appointed Münchhausen Privy Councilor and in 1732 Grand Vogt of the Celle Prefecture. Munchausen played an increasingly important political role in the years following the death of Emperor Charles VI and enjoyed the special trust of both George II and his successor George III.
Dieter Hoffmeister also mentions the correspondence discovered by Claus Boltz in the Dresden State Archives, which shows that von Münchhausen played a leading role in the negotiations for a loan of 3.5 million Reichstalers from Braunschweig to Saxony in 1745. Enclosed in the folder was an exchange of letters between Count Hennicke and Baron Münchhausen, in which Hennicke requested the presentation of the Münchhausen coat-of-arms on January 4th 1745. The service thus must have been created and delivered during this period, between January and April 1745.
Provenance
Private collection, Westphalia.
Literature
See other plates from the service in the Arnhold Collection (cat. London 2008, no. 204 a-c, previously in the Paul v. Ostermann Collection) and formerly in the Hoffmeister Collection (Katalog der Sammlung Hoffmeister. Meissener Porzellan des 18. Jahrhunderts, vol. II, Hamburg 1999, No. 369). 26 of these plates were formerly in Klemperer's collection.