The Swan Service Dresden China commissioned by Count von Bruhl

Swan Service

The “Swan” service was ordered in 1736 for the director of the Meissen manufactory, Heinrich, Graf von Brühl, and originally comprised over 2200 pieces, of which the larger part remained in the family’s possession until World War II. From around 1880, however, pieces were lent to museums in Dresden and Berlin or passed on to collectors, so that by 1900 only 1400 pieces remained at the family’s Silesian seat, Schloss Pförten. These remaining pieces were either destroyed along with the castle, or stolen, at the end of World War II, when Russian soldiers are also said to have thrown plates and saucers into the air to be used like clay pigeon targets! In the December Marouf sale, $88,960 was paid for the ­chocolate cup and saucer seen above, modelled 1739-40 by J.J. Kändler and J.F. Eberlein. The white bodies of the cup and saucer are shell moulded with swans swimming among bulrushes, decorated with Indianische Blumen and (as did nearly all pieces in this great service) bear the arms of Count Brühl and his new wife, Maria Anna Franziska von Kolowrat-Krakowska. Despite some damage and restoration not originally noted in the sale catalogue, the écuelle and cover from the “Swan” service, seen at right, was sold at $156,220 in the more recent, May sale of the Marouf collection.