An Ansbach pink-ground part dinner-service

CIRCA 1765, BLUE A MARKS

Details

An Ansbach pink-ground part dinner-service
Circa 1765, blue A marks
Each piece painted with a loose bouquet, fruit and scattered fruit and flower-sprays within a shaped gilt foliage-moulded panelled border of three gilt trellis panels with moulded coloured flowers and with pendant gilt foliage scrolls, comprising:

Two oval two-handled stands for soup-tureens (each with one handle lacking and the other riveted)
Three oval double-lipped two-handled sauceboats (one cracked across and riveted, one with chips to rim and footrim, the other with chips to footrim)
Six oval stands for sauceboats (four with chips to footrims, one cracked)
A sauce-ladle with an oval bowl
Six shell-moulded salts on three scrolled feet
Two large circular dishes (rim and footrim chips)
Four smaller circular dishes (four with rim chips, all with footrim chips)
Seventy-four plates (forty-seven with rim chips, three cracked, footrim chips)

Sale room notice

There are five smaller circular dishes and not four as stated in the catalogue.

Lot Essay

This type of ware is clearly listed in the Preiskurant of 1767, where class 5 "mit bunten bouquets, verguldet, oder mosaique und guirlanden" are the second most expensive category, cheaper only than wares with purple landscapes and gilt grotesques. Individual plates cost 6 guilders each, the sauce-boats were 8 guilders and the salt-cellars 5 guilders each.

The pattern of the present lot, inspired as it was by Berlin wares, is usually referred to as Berliner Muster. This is more frequently found with green grounds to match the grune Tafel service ordered for Frederick the Great's father-in-law, Margrave Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Ansbach.

The present pink ground would appear to be unrecorded.

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