A PAIR OF ANHALT PUDDING DISHES

CIRCA 1750

Details

A PAIR OF ANHALT PUDDING DISHES
Circa 1750
Each finely enamelled with a large double-coat-of-arms in the center for Christian Auguste, Prince of Anhalt, and his wife Princess Johanna Elizabeth of Holstein-Gottorp, supported by a crowned boar and a lion and surmoutned by numerous crests, all encircled by the ribbon of an order and beneath a large coronet draped with ermine mantling
6½in. (16.5cm.) diam. (2)

Lot Essay

This important service was ordered by Christian Auguste and Johanna Elizabeth, Prince and Princess of Anhalt and parents of Catherine the Great. Direct trade between the China and the German princely states was rare. Frederick the Great established a trading company in 1751 but the Seven Years' War (1756-63) halted commerce, and only seven Prussian ships are recorded at Canton 1753-91. (See Le Corbeiller, op. cit., pp. 80-83). The known German armorial services were all made for princely families: Hohenzollern, Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenberg-Schwerin. It is perhaps no coincidence that the Anhalt daughter, Catherine the Great, ordered two armorial services from China

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