CIRCA 1746-1750, BLUE CROSSED SWORDS MARK AND PRESSNUMMER 27

This tureen-stand is from the service which was delivered after some delay to King Frederik V in Copenhagen in 1751. The service is mentioned numerous times in the surviving correspondence between Ulrich von Spenner (the Saxon Ambassador to Denmark) and Count Brühl (Director of the Meissen manufactory and minister of foreign affairs for Saxony). Their correspondence of March and April 1750 make it clear that the service was an official diplomatic gift in exchange for a gift of horses from Copenhagen. The diplomatic exchange must have taken place in 1746, and the correspondence between Spenner and Brühl discusses the embarrassing delay in getting the service made and delivered to Denmark.

In 1794 there was a disastrous fire at Christiansborg Palace and 159 pieces of the service (152 of them were plates) were either destroyed or went missing.