The Schimmelmann Service. An important Meissen cased tea and coffee service decorated in Augsburg or Dresden, circa 1720-25

each piece superbly decorated in gilding, possibly in the worshop of Abraham Seuter, Augsburg, with hunting scenes mostly after engravings by Johann Elias Ridinger, depicting elegant courtly figures engaged in various stages of stag, boar and duck hunts, including a hunt breakfast, and vignettes of birds perched on branches, all below foliate C-scroll borders,



comprising:



a coffee pot and cover (the cover attached by a chain, 22cm., 8 5/8 in.),



a teapot and cover with eagle spout (lustre mark "C.S", the cover attached by two chains, 14.5cm., 5 5/8in., one claw broken off),



a milk jug and cover (lustre mark "C.S", the cover attached by a chain, 15.4cm., 6 1/16 in., small flat chip to tip of spout and two small flat chips to underside edge of finial),



a tea caddy and cover (10.2cm., 4in., two tiny flat chips to rim of cover),



an oval two-handled sugar box and cover (indistinct lustre mark "S(?)A...", 16.5cm., 6 1/2 in. across, finial restored),



a slop bowl (lustre mark "C.S", 18.4cm., 7 1/4 in. diam., very minor wear to interior),



six teabowls and saucers (lustre marks "C.S", one saucer with rim section restuck),



with six silver-gilt bright-cut edge teaspoons, maker's mark E, Hamburg 1767-1772, all in a green-felt lined fitted calfskin case with tooled gilt foliate scrollwork borders, enclosing birds on the corners and cover, raised on four gilt-metal claw and ball feet, a carrying handle fixed to each side 



 

Count Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann, Schloss Ahrensburg;
Thence by descent;
Dr. Fritz Clemm Collection, Berlin, by 1900;
His sale, Lepke's Berlin, 3rd-5th December 1907, lot 79;
Count Carl Gustav Ernst von Schimmelmann (1848-1922), Schloss Ahrensburg;
Thence by descent

Berlin, Kgl. Kunstgewerbe-Museum, Europäisches Porzellan des 18. Jahrhunderts, 1904, no.50

Karl Berling, Meißner Porzellan, Leipzig 1900, p.123
Adolf Brüning, Europäisches Porzellan des 18. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 1904, ill.50
Siegfried Ducret, Meißner Porzellan bemalt in Augsburg, Braunschweig 1971, vol.I, no.302

Count Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann: Collector and Entrepreneur

Count Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann (1724-82) was active as a merchant in Dresden from 1744 and was appointed Councillor to the Court of Saxony (Accisrat). He was also a supplier to the Prussian Court and responsible for grain deliveries during the Seven Years War (1756-63). In November 1756, he was appointed Prussian Privy Councillor, though he remained in Dresden until July 1757. He played an important role in the history of the Meissen manufactory during the war, when Saxony was occupied by the forces of Frederick the Great.

In November 1756, he purchased the entire stock of Meissen porcelain in Meissen, Dresden and Leipzig, which Frederick the Great had confiscated as war booty. Though valued at 300,000 Talers, he managed to acquire it from the King for 120,000 Talers in cash. He then sold it on for 160,111 Talers to a consortium of three partners: the Privy Councillor Count Joseph von Bolza, Johann Friedrich Thielemann and the Saxon Commercial Councillor, Georg Helbig. Schimmelmann, acting as a representative for this consortium, then leased the Meissen manufactory from the beginning of March 1757 at an annual cost of 25,332 Talers. The manufactory was protected from plundering by Frederick the Great, who issued a "Salve Garde" order to that effect in 1756, to avoid a repeat of the damage suffered during the Second Silesian War. Numerous auctions of Meissen porcelain were held in Hamburg, where Schimmelmann established himself in 1760, following the withdrawal of the Prussians from Dresden that year.

Schimmelmann's lease of the Meissen manufactory was dissolved by the Prussians in 1760. He was raised to the nobility in 1762 as Baron, and in 1779 as Count, and entered the service of the Danish Crown in 1761. In 1768 he was appointed Danish Finance Minister. He died in Copenhagen in 1782 and was laid to rest in a mausoleum designed by C.G. Horn in neo-classical style after plans by the Italian architect G.A. Antolini.

Schloß Ahrensburg

Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann acquired Schloß Ahrensburg in Schleswig-Holstein in 1759. The original Renaissance castle was erected by Peter von Rantzau in 1595 on the site of a former Cistercian monastery. The castle was altered in the first half of the 18th century, and again from 1766, when Schimmelmann commissioned Carl Gottlob Horn to redesign it in the taste prevailing at the Danish Court. It was subsequently altered many times in the 19th century, and in the middle of the century, the Baroque gardens were replanted in English landscape style. The estate remained in the possession of the Schimmelmann family until the 1930s. In 1955 a museum was founded in the castle devoted to the cultural history of the aristocracy of Schleswig-Holstein.

 

Gold Decoration on Early Meissen Porcelain

This type of gilt decoration, which mostly features chinoiserie subjects as well as hunting scenes, has traditionally been attributed to Augsburg goldsmiths, and the Seuter workshop in particular. W.B. Honey first identified the signature "A.Seite" on a cup in the Victoria and Albert Museum, which he published in Pantheon in 1938 identifying it with the Augsburg painter Abraham Seuter. It was Siegfried Ducret, however, who published the comprehensive study of Augsburg-decorated porcelain in 1970, in which he identified several more signed pieces linking this style of gilt decoration to the Seuter workshop (see Literature). More recently, an increased understanding of the role of decorating workshops in Dresden, has raised the possibility that some of this style of gilt decoration may in fact have been executed in Dresden, and it may even have begun there (M. Cassidy-Geiger, "Graphic Sources for Meissen Porcelain: Origins of the Print Collection in the Meissen Archives", in Metropoitan Museum Journal, 31/1996, p.114, n.17). 

The Augsburg painter Abraham Seuter and his brother, the goldsmith Bartholomäus Seuter, are among the most celebrated of the Hausmaler, or outside decorators, of Meissen porcelain in the 18th century. Up to around 1730 or so, the Meissen manufactory appears to have sent most porcelain for gilding in Dresden or Augsburg - a city famed for its goldsmiths. The earliest mention in the Meissen manufactory archives of Seuter is at the end of September 1722, when Bartholomäus Seuter was paid "135 Taler and 12 Groschen" for gilding three services. He received a concession from the Augsburg Council in 1726 to "melt gold and silver on porcelain" and to sell it. He ran the decoration studio "Under the Laundry" until his death in 1747. Siegfried Ducret attributed the decoration on the service to Abraham Seuter.

 

The Schimmelmann Service

This exceptional service is distinguished by its size, quality and condition. The traditional description of these cased services as "travelling services" may not be entirely accurate: Meissen porcelain was considered in the 1720s to be so precious and rare that it is unlikely that such early sets were intended for everyday use. Such was the rarity and value of porcelain that Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, frequently presented it to fellow monarchs and princes as gifts, such as the Danish King in 1716, and the King of Sardinia in 1725, whose gift included an armorial tea and chocolate service in a fitted case  There is also some evidence that such cased services were destined for princely display cabinets, where they were shown together with silver, ivories and other precious objects to demonstrate to visitors the wealth and splendour of the princely owner. A comparable Meissen service, also decorated with gilt hunting scenes, is recorded, for example, in a 1733 inventory of the Durlach Residence, seat of the Margraves of Baden-Durlach. The set, which also included silver spoons, was displayed in the Audienz Zimmer (Audience Room), "in einem schwartz Cardobanenen gelb beschlagenem Küstlein mit grünem Tuch gefüttert" [in a black...box covered in yellow and lined with green cloth].

According to family anecdote, Schimmelmann acquired the service when he purchased from Frederick the Great the porcelain confiscated from Meissen, Leipzig and Dresden. At some point in the 19th century, the service left the possession of Schimmelmann's heirs and was for a time owned by the renowned Berlin porcelain collector, Dr. Fritz Clemm, from whose sale in 1907 the family may have bought back the service. While in the Clemm Collection, the service was exhibited in the renowned, ground-breaking exhibition of 18th century European porcelain held in 1904 in the Royal Museum of Decorative Arts in the Berlin Residence. This was the first major exhibition of 18th century European porcelain to be held in Germany: it included well over 1000 examples and generated enormous public interest and inspired many of the next generation of great collectors. Adolf Brüning, Director of the Museum, noted in the exhibition catalogue the rarity of a complete service from the early period of the manufactory. Interestingly, the involvement of Augsburg goldsmiths in decorating early Meissen porcelain was not yet understood in 1904. Brüning speculated that the lustre mark "C.S" on the base of several of the pieces might be the initials of the painter Johann Christoph Schäffler, who is listed as a "painter and lacquerer" as early as 1710  (R.Rückert,  Biographische Daten der Meißener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, p.86).

The Augsburg painter and engraver, Johann Elias Ridinger, is probably the source for at least some of the scenes depicted on this service. A series of eight engravings by Georg Christoph Steudler, titled "Großer Herren Lust in allerhand Jagen", after drawings by Ridinger, was published in Ausgburg by Martin Engelbrecht in 1720, for which see Ducret, op.cit., ills.295 and 298. For a discussion of the hunt in the Electorate of Saxony in the 17th and 18th centuries, and depictions in the decorative arts, see Harriet Hauger & Hans-Christian Täubrich (eds.), Vom Jagen, exhibition catalogue, Schloß Moritzburg, 29th May to 30th August 1992.

A magnificent mechanical table attributed to Jean-François Oeben, circa 1750-55, acquired by Count Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann for Schloss Ahrensburg, will be offered in the sale of Fine French Furniture and Decorations to be held at Sotheby's Paris, 15th December 2003.