Lot Essay
The déjeuner, also called a "kredenz" or "trembleuse," was used to serve a first breakfast in a private bedroom; the fact that the cups are held on to the stand by fixed supports suggests that the déjeuner was used in bed. The porcelain cups were typically imported from Meissen, and held hot chocolate. The glass beakers would have held water or vermouth, which was considered to be healthful. The small leaf-shaped dish on pedestal support was for rock sugar, and the leaf-shaped stand itself would have held a biscuit. Similar rococo déjeuners appear in portraits of fashionable subjects in their dressing-robes. Lorenz Seelig, in Silber und Gold: Augsburger Goldschmiedekunst fürr die Höfe Europas, 1994, illustrates a similar example also made by J.J. Adam, who specialized in these déjeuners. (Seelig, cat. no. 114; portraits, pp. 406 and 432.)