Dish from the Swan Service
Medium
Hard-paste porcelain, polychrome enamels, and gilding
Dimensions
6.7 × 42.3 cm (2 5/8 × 16 5/8 in.)
Classification
dish (vessel)
Department
Applied Arts of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
74737
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This plate was a part of an elaborate 2,200-piece dinner service that was acclaimed as the largest porcelain service produced in the 18th century. It was commissioned by the director of the Meissen Manufactory, Count Heinrich von Brühl, in 1736 and took four years to complete. Almost all the pieces are painted with the arms of count Brühl and his wife Maria Anna Franziska, whom he married in 1734.
About the Artist
Meissen Porcelain Manufactory
The Meissen Porcelain Manufactory, established on June 6, 1710, by Augustus II the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, in the Albrechtsburg castle at Meissen near Dresden, marked Europe's breakthrough in producing true hard-paste porcelain. Building on experiments by physicist Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus and alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger, who perfected the formula using local...