An oval Meissen porcelain tureen with vegetable motifs from the dinner service for Count Heinrich Brühl
"Brühl'sches Allerlei" model, painted with fruit and flowers and with a finial formed as a cauliflower, asparagus and peas. Blue crossed swords mark. Firing cracks, the foot under the brown branch handle reattached, minor retouches to the green pigment. H 31, W c. 35 cm.
Around 1743, model by Johann Friedrich Eberlein, 1742/1743.
Three tureens from the dinner service for Count Henrich Brühl were identified by Claudia Bodinek in 2017. She mentions that Eberlein began the model in October 1742. However, he was still working on the cauliflower finial and the two differently modelled pairs of feet in April 1743. At least one, but perhaps two, of these tureens had a crab in relief on the lid. One can assume that these vessels, unlike the vegetable tureens, were intended exclusively for dishes made from crab.
The "Brühlsche Allerlei" (Brühl's miscellany) was one of the most magnificent dinner services ever produced by the Meissen manufactory. The name is derived from the person who ordered it, Count Heinrich Brühl (1700 - 1763), Saxon Prime Minister and Chief Inspector of the porcelain manufactory. He kept the manufactory occupied for many years, from 1742 until his death, with the order for his own service, which was comparable in scope and ambition to the better-known Swan Service. Over 2,000 pieces were produced, including dinnerware, dessert and coffee services. Most of the models can be attributed to Johann Friedrich Eberlein and Johann Gottlieb Ehder, whose working documents contain numerous references to the service.
Literature
Cf. Bodinek, Ein Meissener Porzellanservice für den Graf - Das Brühl'sche Allerlei, in: Keramos 235/236/2017, pp. 126 f., three other identical oval tureens from the dinner service, one from the Lucia E. Uihlein Collection (with crab on the lid), the second from The Bowes Museum Barnard Castle/Durham, the third auctioned by Christie's London on 3 December 1984, lot 192.