CIRCA 1744-45, BLUE CROSSED SWORDS MARKS, PRESSNUMMER 20 TO BOTH

Archival research has revealed that work began on this service on 28 April 1741.¹ At this time Russia was ruled by a Regent, Anna Leopoldovna, Princess of Mecklenburg, whose son, Tsar Ivan VI, was only two months old when he came to the throne. Anna’s regency of Russia was short-lived because in December 1741 her cousin Elisabeth seized power in a coup d’etat, imprisoning Ivan and his parents in exile.

Lydia Liackhova notes that the Meissen Elizabeth Service appears to have originally been a gift for the Regent, Anna Leopoldovna, but as work on the service was still in progress in November 1741, the eventual recipient was actually Tsarina Elisabeth.² Surviving archival evidence shows that Elizabeth was not very impressed with the service, presumably because it was too modest in size.³ Empress Elizabeth would have been unaware that Augustus III, the Elector of Saxony, had already commissioned a new service as a Diplomatic gift (which was the St. Andrew First Called Service). Once word of Elizabeth’s dissatisfaction reached Dresden in 1744, work on a supplement to aggrandize the existing Elizabeth Service was begun.

As Liackhova notes, there are stylistic differences between the first delivery of the service and the second delivery. The first delivery (intended for Anna Leopoldovna but received by Elizabeth), had indianische Blumen painted at the centres, with birds perched on the branches.⁴ The supplement, which was created between 1744 and 1745, had Holzschnitt Blumen (flowers derived from prints) at the centres. The present pair of plates must therefore have been part of the supplement, which was created specifically for Empress Elizabeth as a Diplomatic gift. The gift was an attempt to secure Russia’s assistance against Frederick The Great of Prussia. The St. Andrew First Called Service arrived in July 1745, and in October 1745 the empress finally agreed to help Saxony.⁵

1. Lydia Liackhova, ‘In a Porcelain Mirror, Reflections of Russia from Peter I to Empress Elizabeth’ in Maureen Cassidy-Geiger (Ed.), Fragile Diplomacy, Bard Graduate Center Exhibition Catalogue, 2007, p. 73.
2. Lydia Liackhova, ibid., 2007, p. 73.
3. In a report on the Empress in the summer of 1744, the Saxon Ambassador to Russia wrote that ‘on the Order’s festival H.I.M. – having shown that the porcelain with which She was served for the dessert displeased her, the Minister mentioned, who discovered this by chance, eulogised the porcelain of Saxony and H.M. Empr. – replied to him that she did not believe she had a complete service of this porcelain, and assured H.M. the Empr. – that if H.M. the King – knew of this he would be persuaded to remedy it immediately’, citing Tobias Burg, Lydia Liackhova and Ulrich Pietsch, ‘Das Andreas-Service’ in Pietsch (Ed.), Meissen for the Czars, Exhibition Catalogue, Munich, 2004, p. 66.
4. For an illustration of pieces from this first supplement, see Lydia Liackhova, ‘Das Elizabeth-Service’ in Pietsch (Ed.), Meissen für die Zaren, 2004, pp. 59-61. Pieces from the supplement are illustrated pp. 62-65.
5. For the background of the ‘St. Andrew First Called Service’, which evolved at the same time as the ‘Elizabeth Service’, see Lydia Liackhova, ibid., 2007, pp. 72-74.