Lot 1081 | KPM | Dessert Plate from the "Yellow Dinner Service" for the Potsdam City Palace

DESSERT PLATE FROM THE "YELLOW DINNER SERVICE" FOR THE POTSDAM CITY PALACE.

KPM. Berlin.

Date: 1770.
Technique: Porcelain, decorated with colors and gold.
Description: Slightly curved rim with golden border. Below it a bundle of thin rods wrapped with a
yellow ribbon. The Rim with an openwork basket pattern, which is decorated with small
yellow blossoms and interrupted by 4 fields of gilded vine work. The edge of the center is
circumferentially decorated with a thin golden band, the so-called "Laubkänntgen". A
finely painted bouquet of flowers in the center.
Measurement: Ø 25cm.
Mark: Sceptre mark, K(?)3 and r impressed.

Literature:
- Baer, Winfried and Ilse (eds.): Blumen für den König. 225 Jahre Breslauer Stadtschloß - Service, exhib. cat. Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Berlin November 5, 1992 to January 10, 1993, Berlin 1992. p.64-69. The dessert plate illustrated on p.69.
- Lorenz, Angelika (ed.): Berliner Porzellan 1763-1850, Glanz und Eleganz auf Tischen und Tafeln, exhib. cat. Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte September 24, 2006 to January 7, 2007, Münster 2006. pp.66-67.

A Service for the "Bronze Hall" in the Potsdam City Palace

The dessert plate offered here comes from a service designed in close connection to the aesthetics of an interior.
In the 1740s Frederick the Great commissioned his court architect Georg Wenzelslaus von Knobelsdorff to remodel the Potsdam City Palace, which was to be his future winter residence. The result was one of the most important building and garden ensembles of the Frederician Rococo period.
The most magnificent dining room in the palace, the so-called "Bronze Hall" was furnished in 1754. The white-panelled room was lavishly decorated with fire-gilded bronze appliqués, chandeliers and console tables, which earned the room its name. Naturally, such a magnificent décor had to be honoured with an appropriate dinner service and so, on January 18th 1770, the King ordered twenty sets of a service "painted with natural flowers and guirlands, gold foliage, circumferential ornaments and yellow fond." The colour scheme of the porcelain was intended to correspond to the bright and luminous appearance of the dining room. In its forms and its painting decor, the service was somewhat stricter than previous versions, thus already tending towards classicism in some individual elements.
Even though the City Palace and the Bronze Hall are no longer existing today, the few surviving pieces of the "Yellow Table Service" still bear witness to the splendour and elegance of their intended place of purpose.