Lot Essay
Count Brhl (1700-63), the director of the Meissen factory from 1733 until his death, ran the affairs of Saxony for the majority of Frederick Augustus II's reign (1733-63). He commissioned The Swan Service in 1737 on the occasion of his marriage to Maria Anna Franziska von Kolowrat-Krakowska. The moulded decoration was carried out by J.J. Kändler with the assistance of J.F. Eberlein perhaps as late as 1742, as the conception of the more complex sculptural elements of the service continued until at least 1742 when Eberlein is known to have modified details of this particular model. It would appear to be the largest service produced in the 18th Century and Rainer Rckert (op. cit. [1966], p. 118) estimates its original size to have been between 2200 and 2400 pieces. The service remained in the possession of the family at Schloss Pförten in Upper Lusatia until after the Second World War. Cf. Rainer Rckert, ibid. (1966) col. pl. XIX, no. 508, and the example sold by Christie's Geneva on 12 May 1986, lot 250, for examples with entwined dolphin handles.