Important Early 19th Century KPM Porcelain Plaque of Royal Provenance

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Important Early 19th Century KPM Porcelain Plaque of Royal Provenance

About the Item

The subject: The tondo shows an allegory of peace. In the top center Apollo floating over clouds, the sun behind his head. In his right hand holding as a sign of the (military) victory a laurel branch, his left arm resting on the globe, on which the countries Ireland, England, France, Germany, Russia and Turkey are indicated. Apollon is surrounded by the three Erinyes Alecto, Tisiphone and Megaera. They were in Greek myth female spirits of justice and vengeance (the Romans referred to them as Furies). Known especially for pursuing people who had murdered family members, the Furies punished their victims by driving them mad. When not punishing wrongdoers on earth, they lived in the underworld and tortured the damned. They are depicted between storm clouds, one carrying a torch and sword the hair entwined with serpents. The other two are holding serpents and a golden apple (as a symbol for the Fall of Man?) in their hands. According to some stories, the Furies were sisters born from the blood of Uranus, the primeval god of the sky, when he was wounded by his son Cronus. In other stories, they were the children of Nyx (night). In either case, their primeval origin set them apart from the other deities of the Greek and Roman pantheons. Although the Furies seemed terrifying and sought vengeance, they were not considered deliberately evil. On the contrary, they represented justice and were seen as defenders of moral and legal order. They punished the wicked and guilty without pity but the good and innocent had little to fear from them. The Artist Friedrich Janecke: The artist Friedrich Janecke was born 1784 in Braunschweig and was first employed in the ”Stobwasserschen Fabrik” in Brunswick. In 1815 he joined the KPM Berlin and worked there until after 1850 as a figure painter. The catalogues from the Berlin Academy mention some KPM Porcelain decorated by him. He is also listed there as figure painter of the KPM. Janecke was one of the outstanding painters of the KPM and belonged with an income of 729 thalers among the highest paid KPM painters of the time. In addition, he belonged since 1825 to the Council of Elders. In 1848 it came to a disagreement between the management and the Council of Elders, where the director Carl Georg Prössel mentions Janecke (as the only opponent by name) in a report to the Ministry: “he always feels called on oppositions to be the speaker”. However, he added immediately, as one of the most talented figure painters, Janecke is indispensable, when it comes to large state commissions. The frame: The elaborate giltwood frame with corner ornaments made of cast gilded zinc is most likely based on a design by the German architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel and is comparable with a series of designs by the architect for the Gemäldegalerie Berlin. Schinkel had to deal intensively with picture framing in the years before 1830, as it came to redesign the Art Gallery in the Royal Museum at the Lustgarten in Berlin, (nowadays the Altes Museum). About half of the 1196 paintings were frameless for a variety of reasons and received new frames after a design by Schinkel. Schinkel was regularly asked beyond the framework project for the museum (1827-1830), to frame a painting, a relief or to design a mirror frame. Primarily he designed these commissions for members of the Prussian royal family, but also for foreign courts, friends, fellow artists, to numerous altarpieces and not least for his own paintings. In contrast to the museums context they were each created "to the individual order.” Gneisenau was not only a patron and lover of the art by Schinkel (Schinkel painted several pictures for him), but he was also a close friend to him. In 1822 Schinkel was commissioned by Gneisenau, to design a grave monument in Erdmannsdorf for his 22-year-old deceased daughter Agnes von Scharnhorst. Schinkel took the job "with melancholy and profound sympathy," as he wrote in a letter to the family of Gneisenau and sent immediately a design drawing. Provenance: Schloss (palace) Erdmannsdorf (Silesia), inventory label ”Gen. Katal. No 3671”. There until the auction of parts of the Inventory on March 26th, 1928 by Emil Richter, Dresden. In the auction catalog (catalogue no. 8). ”Aus Schloß Erdmannsdorf, ehem. Bes. Königs Friedrich Wilhelm III.”, lot 637 (Janecke, F.). Then private collection, Rhineland/ Germany. The Palace Erdmannsdorf: After the end of the wars of liberation against Napoleon, the retired Prussian Field Marshal Graf Neidhardt von Gneisenau settled down in the Hirschberger Tal, or rather, he exchanged in 1816 his estate Mittel-Kauffung against Erdmannsdorf. He noted about the acquisition: "The area is heavenly, the south side (to Schneekoppe) great, the midnight side (towards Lomnitz) most lovely. There are forests and ponds and the most beautiful meadows. I hope that with some intelligent effort, I will be able to form one of the the most beautiful estates, that are on earth". Gneisenau remodeled the palace in a neoclassical style, raised a mezzanine and added a Belvedere with a shallow dome. After the decease of Gneisenau in 1831, Frederick Wiliam III, King of Prussia bought the estate Erdmannsdorf on the 21st of August 1832 from the heirs of Gneisenau for 136,000 thalers. In the same year Karl Friedrich Schinkel visited Erdmannsdorf for the first time to familiarize himself with the site of the palace. It was primarly some renovation work, that was carried out; the horseshoe-shaped Baroque palace architecture was newly plastered, painted in the King’s favorite color light blue and grey and the interior was refurbished. The Biedermeier salon furniture after a design of Schinkel still exists and is nowadays on display in the Silesian Museum in Görlitz. The appearance of the palace Erdmannsdorf in the 1830s was not only determined by Schinkel, but also by Frederick Wiliam III. The thrifty king who conceived the good taste as a strict, essentially classical style, has never made the use of Gothic architecture on secular buildings. He preferred the life of a simple country nobleman in Erdmannsdorf, just as in Paretz and similar to his several visits to Erdmannsdorf, when it still belonged to Gneisenau. As the new owner of the palace he arrived for the first time in August 1835. After the death of Frederick William III. on June 7th, 1840 the palace was inherited by his second wife, Princess Liegnitz. She sold Erdmannsdorf very quickly to the new king, who then let her build a house in the Swiss style on the grounds of the palace complex. Frederick Wiliam IV visited already by the 15th-25th of August 1840 Erdmannsdorf, before his ‘Huldigungsfeier’ (ceremony) on the 8th of September in Königsberg. He arrived along with Stüler, the director of the Royal building committee. For this reason several members of the royal family had come and even the Empress of Russia. Now the significant redesign of the castle was undertaken in the English Gothic style. Schinkel became meanwhile ill and so it is assumed that the redesign of the palace goes back exclusively to Stüler. After completion of the renovations the palace remained the summer residence of the royal Prussian family. In 1888 Prince Henry, son of the in the same year deceased Emperor Frederick III. Briefly inhabited the palace, then a sister Charlotte of Saxe-Meiningen. In 1909 the palace was finally sold for 1,050,000 marks to Amtsrat Richter in Schönau bei Neumarkt, who auctioned off the entire inventory. The inventory label indicates that this porcelain plaque was part of the collection of the palace Erdmannsdorff (until 1928), and thus in possession of King Frederick Wiliam III. And his successors. He bought Erdmannsdorf in 1832 after the decease of Gneisenau in 1831 (most probably with parts of the inventory). Since the plaque is dated 1830 it must have been previously in the possession of the Field Marshal. The image of the ‘Allegory of Peace’ and (military) victory fits brilliantly to the lifework of Gneisenau. It can therefore be assumed, that this precious KPM plaque might have been a gift to the 70th anniversary of the Field Marshal Gneisenau in the year 1830.

Creator:
KPM Porcelain (Manufacturer)
Dimensions:
Height: 19.49 in (49.5 cm)Width: 19.49 in (49.5 cm)Depth: 2.76 in (7 cm)
Style:
Neoclassical (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Porcelain,Hand-Painted
Place of Origin:
Germany
Period:
Early 19th Century
Date of Manufacture:
1830
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use.
Seller Location:
Worpswede / Bremen, DE
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU981415426852

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KPM Porcelain

The Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Berlin, or KPM (Royal Porcelain Factory, Berlin, in English) was one of the most influential porcelain factories to emerge in 18th-century Germany, along with Nymphenburg and Meissen. KPM was the third incarnation of a company originally founded in 1751 by Wilhelm Caspar Wegely to take advantage of the burgeoning market for “white gold.” On the verge of bankruptcy, Wegely sold his inventory and tools to Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky, who in 1761 established another porcelain factory, which also failed, and was subsequently taken over by Frederick II of Prussia in 1763. Like Augustus II, Elector of Saxony, the patron of Meissen and a keen collector who described himself as suffering (quite happily) from “porcelain sickness,” Frederick II was proud to refer to himself as KPM’s “best customer.” KPM produces china and figurines to this day, and throughout its long history, it has been a style-setter for elegant tableware, particularly in the 1930’s, the period during which their popular patterns Urbino, Urania and Arkadia were designed.

Thanks to its royal patronage, KPM had the resources and contacts necessary to establish itself as a leading luxury producer, and supplied Russian and European elites with tableware in the Rococo and Neoclassical styles, as well as monumental vases, and decorative plaques. Many of these objects can be found today in major museums as a result of Frederick II’s penchant for sending KPM porcelain as diplomatic gifts throughout Europe. Unlike Meissen, which was known for crafting porcelain sculptures of dazzling complexity, KPM is revered for the precision and splendor of its surface decoration, and for its porcelain plaques depicting scenes from history and mythology. One especially lovely example circa 1790 is a neocalssical-style tea service decorated with gold accents and a grisaille design of figures from the ancient world. By contrast, this boldly colorful narrative cup and saucer set from the 1840’s depicts scenes from real life as colorfully as a painting. The set was commissioned by a gentleman for his wife as a tongue-in-cheek gift commemorating her misadventures while in town for a visit to the opera, which resulted in her opera glasses being stolen. The saucer shows the thief and the glasses, and the cup reveals the scene of the crime in vivid hues.

KPM was forced to move from its original location in 1867 due to the building of the new Prussian Parliament building, and this afforded the company the opportunity to to create a new factory with the newest equipment and materials of the day. With the growing popularity of Art Nouveau and the western fascination with Asian ceramics, KPM began formulating glazes that evoked the color palette and rich surfaces of Chinese porcelain. By the turn of the century, KPM was exhibiting its wares to a global audience at international expositions. At the end of World War I with the collapse of the Prussian monarchy, KPM was renamed the State Porcelain Manufactory Berlin, continuing to use the name KPM and its use of the cobalt blue sceptre mark that is painted on the bottom of every piece.

By the late 1920’s, the designers and craftsmen of KPM were inspired by the tenets of Modernism, particularly the styles of the Bauhaus and the Deutscher Werkbund. During this period, the firm’s aim was to produce useful household porcelain for a range of consumers, rather than catering to a small elite. Among the most successful patterns of this era was designer Trude Petri’s Urbino line, which is still produced today. Following World War II, KPM was temporarily housed in the town of Selb, and only returned to its rebuilt quarters in Berlin in 1957. In the 1980s, KPM became an private company independent of the state, and began to focus production on the preservation of historic forms, designs, and techniques. KPM continues to collaborate with designers from all over the world, most recently on the Berlin dinnerware service with designer Enzo Mari, and a collaboration with the luxury brands Bottega Veneta and Bugatti.