CIRCA 1790, UNDERGLAZE BLUE SCEPTRE MARK

Details

A Berlin Royal circular biscuit portrait plaque of Friedrich Wilhelm II
Circa 1790, underglaze blue sceptre mark
Modelled by Johann Georg Müller with the King in profile to the right, his hair en queue and wearing the badge and sash of the Order of the Black Eagle, the moulded frame with a gilt ciselé ribbon-tied wreath of laurel between concentric gilt bands, the top with two pierced apertures for suspension (minute wear to gilding, slight firing crack at join of back of his shoulder and ground)
6¾ in. (17.1 cm.) diam.

Provenance

Formerly in a private collection in Cologne (1966).

Literature

Erich Köllmann, Berliner Porzellan (Brunswick, 1966), Vol. II, fig. 158a.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Lot Essay

Friedrich Wilhelm II (1744-1797) married firstly Elizabeth of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1746-1840), and then after their divorce in 1769 he married Frederica (1751-1805), daughter of Louis IX Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, in the same year.

During Friedrich Wilhelm's brief reign (1786-1797), radical artistic changes took place in Prussia. His uncle, Frederick The Great, had clung onto the Baroque and Rococo styles up until the end of his reign, but Friedrich Wilhelm opened the gates to Neoclassicism. Berlin adopted Neoclassicism with vigour, and Johann Gottfried Schadow (1764-1850), Carl Gotthard Langhans (1732-1808) and David Gilly (1748-1808) became the new influential personalites at this period. Two years after Frederick The Great's death, Langhans began work on the Neoclassical Brandenburg Gate (completed in 1791) which symbolised a new era in Prussia.

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