CIRCA 1745-55, BLUE CROSSED SWORDS MARKS, PRESSNUMMERN 36 AND 61

The heron plate in this lot possibly once formed part of a service made for Frederick the Great. In the 1930s a large portion of a service, of identical design to the present lot, was given by the German government to Randolph Hearst, and this subsequently passed into the Paula de Koenigsberg Collection, Buenos Aires. Fifty-eight of these pieces were sold Christie's, London, 28 November 1977, lots 88-119. The catalogue ascribes the Frederick the Great provenance to these pieces, although the origin of this information is unclear. The current plate is of the same design but it did not form part of this sale group.

Animals and birds painted in a similar style appear on the Japanische Service, which Frederick the Great is known to have ordered from Meissen in November 1762, although this service has a different border from the current lot. Another similar service was given by King Augustus III to the British Envoy, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams in 1747, and is discussed by T.H. Clarke in his article, 'Das Northumberland-service aus Meissener Porzellan', Keramos, October 1975, no. 70, pp. 9-91, where he argues that what has come to be known as the 'Northumberland Service', in the possession of the Dukes of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle, is in fact the majority of the service given to Hanbury Williams by King Augustus.

Unlike the Hanbury Williams Service, the specimen of the heron plate does not appear to have been taken from the first volume of Eleazar Albin's Natural History of Birds, published in three volumes from 1731 to 1738 (and acquired by Meissen in 1745), and the graphic source for them is currently unknown.