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Artist
MEISSEN PORCELAIN (worked from 1710)
Country of Origin
Germany
Dated
c. 1740
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Medium
hard paste porcelain
Dimensions
11.00inch wide
11.00inch high
(27.94 cm wide 27.94 cm high)
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Exhibition History
Exhibited and illustrated “Fragile Diplomacy” Bard Graduate Center, New York, Nov. 2007-February 2008; Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, Fragile Diplomacy: Meissen Porcelain for European Courts ca. 1710-63, 2007, p. 229, fig. 10-43
Description / Expertise
The service was ordered by January 1740
The arms are those of Don Luigi Reggio e Branciforte, and incorporate the Order of St. Januarius. He was the Spanish ambassador to Venice at the time when Crown Prince Friedrich Christian of Saxony made his Grand Tour of Italy in 1738-40, and he received the Saxon Prince in great style as he passed through Venice on his way to visit his sister, Queen Maria Amalia of Naples. The service was given to Campoflorido as a token of appreciation for his hospitality, and when he was later posted as French ambassador in Paris he took the service with him. The duc de Luynes commented that he saw the splendid service in use twice, once at a dinner to celebrate the birth of a baby to the Queen of Naples and the Two Sicilies and the second to celebrate the birth of Mme. Infanté of Spain.
Signed/Inscribed/Dated
crossed swords in underglaze blue on base; impressed ‘21’
