A Royal German neoclassical gilt-bronze and porcelain–mounted guéridon table, the porcelain plaque by the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur, Berlin, signed Krüger 1818, probably after a design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841), circa 1818-1819

the circular top with a quadripartite border cast with trelliswork enclosing a
porcelain plaque depicting a variety flowers including tulips, roses, peonies, hydrangeas, the stem in the form of a palm tree terminating in curled gilt-bronze leaves, on a circular dished base cast with a gadrooned frieze with a pierced gallery on flattened bun feet

Commissioned and purchased by King Friedrich Wilhelm III (1770-1840), King of Prussia (1797-1840) from the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur, Berlin, (see fig. 1).
Possibly delivered to Empress Maria Feodorovna (1759-1828), for the Palace of Pavlovsk.
Imperial Russian Palace Collections, sold R. Lepke, Berlin, 1928.
Sold Christie's Monaco, 1^st July 1995, lot 173.
Sold from the Collections of Lily & Edmond Safra, Sotheby’s, New York, 19^th October 2011, Vol. IV, lot 740.

In overall very good conserved condition. Colour of gilt-bronze slightly less greenish and more golden and attractive than in the catalogue photograph. The porcelain top is beautifully decorated. There is very slight tarnishing to the gilt-bronze in places especially the leaves and some very minor pitting to the top of the gilt-bronze dished base.There is a hairline repair join in the gilt-bronze border of the top as visible from the catalogue photograph but this is hardly noticeable and does not detract from the piece. Some leaves are a slightly bent as visible in the catalogue photograph. Old very minor marks and scratches to the porcelain top in various places which are commensurate with age and normal usage. There is a very minor area of wear to the outer border of the porcelain top which is of a slightly lighter colour and possibly has been retouched and is hardly noticeable.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Comparative Literature:
Dr. Ilse Baer, Table Tops from the Berlin Porcelain Manufactory (KPM) from the First Half of the Nineteenth Century, The International Ceramics Fair and Seminar Handbook, 2001, p.18, note 12.
Emmanuel Ducamp, ed., Pavlovsk, The Palace and The Park, Paris, 1993, p. 136.
Charlotte Gere, Nineteenth Century Decoration, The Art of the Interior, London,1989, fig. 259, illustrates a watercolour dated 1847 by Eduard von Gärtner of the Green Room in the Stadtschlöss, Berlin.
H. Börsch-Supan, Die Kataloge der Berliner Akademie-Austellungen 1786-1850,Berlin, 1971, Nr. 1994. 

This superbly decorated and cast guéridon table is a visually stunning representation of the art of exoticism in the form of a palm tree and is part of a group of seven or eight that were all produced at the KMP Manufactory in Berlin in the first quarter of the 19^th century. All of them had a base cast in gilt-bronze in the form of a palm tree emerging from a stylised pot surmounted by a circular porcelain plaque. Three of these guéridon tables were in important aristocratic collections underlining their symbolic status. The offered table is listed in the Royal Account Book of King Friedrich Wilhelm III for 1819, and described as a round table top with floral design on a dark ground and a bronze stand like a palm tree. According to Dr. Wittwer, Director of the Stifung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten in Berlin, eight palm tree porcelain table tops were commissioned by Friedrich William III: five with flowers and two with grapes and one depicting a scene from Homer. These tables were produced in Berlin between 1818 and 1821, probably after a design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1777-1841) (H. Börsch-Supan, Die Kataloge der Berliner Akademie-Austellungen 1786-1850,Berlin, 1971, Nr. 1994). 

The account book in the KPM archives reveals that each table described as "a bronze stand like a palm tree" was gilt and priced at 236 Reichstaler, while the tops were priced at 100 Reichstaler each (I. Baer, op. cit., pp. 13-14). All of the tables, with the exception of the Elgin table discussed post, were decorated with a floral design of a `bouquet of flowers’ or a `ground densely covered with flowers’ as on the present example, on a white or `dark’ ground or with`coloured grapes’.

They were made during the zenith in the history of the Berlin manufactory. In 1814, successful experiments with greens formulated from chromium-oxidul made a fundamental change in the technical process of painting views so that oil paintings could be more easily copied onto the table-tops and therefore appeared in greater numbers and according to Baer op. cit., `a clear improvement in and greater colour balance with a correspondingly richer palette can be established for the years after the War of Liberation’.

From 1818-1850, a considerable number of commissions were executed by the manufactory, especially from the Prussian royal house for the Prussian Kings, Friedrich Wilhelm III and Friedrich Wilhelm IV, as well as people connected to the royal family and recorded in the `Conto Buch Sr. Majestät’ (His Majesty’s Account Book) in the KPM archives, although the name of the recipient of the royal gift was not always entered. Many orders without the address of the recipient were originally destined for storage to be drawn on by the royal house as and when required.

The second table of this form `densely covered with flowers’ is at Pavlovsk Palace, in the dressing room of Empress Maria Feodorovna (1759-1828), see Duchamp, op. cit., p. 136, reproduced in figs. 2 and 3. This table was ordered in December 1818 for "Her Majesty, the Russian Empress, mother" and was a gift from Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovitch, brother of Tsar Alexander I to his mother Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (née Sophie Dorothea von Württemberg). The Duke married Princess Charlotte, daughter of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia in 1817.

It is possible that the offered table was a pair to the one at Pavlovsk, according to Baer, op. cit., p. 18. The construction of Pavlovsk Palace was initiated by Duchess Maria Feodorovna and Duke Pavel Petrovich (1754-1801) in 1781 after the birth of their first son. After her husband's assassination in 1801, Maria Feodorovna retired to Pavlovsk, which was partially consumed by fire in 1803. She employed Alexander Voronikhin and Carlo Rossi, amongst others, to head the renovations and the redecoration of the state apartments. The guéridon now in her dressing room entered the Imperial Collection following this period of reconstruction as a gift from her son Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovitch. The Grand Duke (1796-1855), the future Tsar Nicholas I, was a major client of the KPM manufactory, witnessed by the magnificent table commissioned for his wedding in 1817, sold by the Soviets, Lepke, Berlin, November 6th-7th, 1928, and now in the Hillwood Museum, as well as his wedding service, neither of which were delivered until 1823. 

A third table with a similarly decorated floral top, the porcelain plaque signed Krüger 1819, was commissioned by King Friedrich Wilhelm III on May 15^th 1819 and offered to his cousin Princess Luise Radziwill, as a birthday gift on 13^th October 1819, daughter of Prince Ferdinandt of Prussia, brother of Frederick II and married to Fürst Antoni Radziwill, now in a private European collection, the top of which is reproduced here in fig. 4.

A fourth table, also depicting flowers on its top, is currently in a private European collection.  

A fifth table with grapes on the top on a dark ground was commissioned and purchased by King Friedrich Wilhelm III on October 11^th 1819 and offered as a birthday gift on October 13th 1819 to his sister-in-law, Maria Anna von Hessen-Homburg, who was married to his brother Prince William of Prussia, formerly in the same private collection as the one illustrated in fig. 5.
A sixth was formerly in the collection of 11th Earl of Elgin and 15th Earl of Kinkardine, K.T. and sold Sotheby's London, June 13th, 2001, lot 325, the top depicting the blind Homer reproduced here in fig. 6. That table, inset with the mark of the Berlin porcelain factory, was gifted to Frederick William Augustus Bruce (1814-1867), son of Thomas Elgin, as a christening present by Frederich William III of Prussia (1770-1840).

A seventh is depicted in a watercolour of 1847 in the Berlin Stadtschloss, destroyed in World War II-reproduced here in fig. 7.

The attribution to Schinkel for this guéridon table rests on the reference to a table by Werner & Neffen exhibited in the Berlin Academy in 1836 (see H. Börsch-Supan, op. cit., 1836, Nr. 1194).The aforementioned table cast in bronze and gilt-bronze and in the form of a palm tree is stated to be after a drawing by Schinkel.

The signature on the porcelain plaque may be that of Karl Friedrich Peter Krüger (1782-1832), who worked for the KPM from 1796-1829 (information kindly supplied by Eva Wollschläger).

Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841):
He was a leading designer and architect to the Prussian court in the first half of the 19^th century and one of his first recorded commissions was a bed and toilet table for Queen Louise designed in 1809 for the Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin. He was appointed Geheimer Orberbaurat (Director of Works) in 1815 in the Prussian Office of Public Works which was the start of his career as an architect and he had the greatest impact on industrial arts and crafts and was concerned with the revival of historic forms and techniques and a considerable connoisseur and collector and was at ease in both the Greek and Gothic style.

King Friedrich Wilhelm III (1770-1840):
He was born August 3^rd 1770, Potsdam-died 7^th June 1840, Berlin, King of Prussia from 1797-1840 and the son of Frederick William II. The acceleration in the decline in Prussia’s prestige was due to his policy of neutrality in the Wars of the Second and Third Coalitions. His domestic reforms prior to his army’s defeat in the Battle of Jena foreshadowed his later reforms without altering the absolutist structure of the state. Until 1807, he clung to the traditional cabinet government and after the military collapse of 1806-07 and the loss of all the provinces west of the Elbe River, he finally realised that Prussia would have to make decisive changes and he therefore sanctioned the reforms proposed by the Prussian statesmen Karl Stein and Karl von Hardenberg, but these changes amounted only to a reform of the higher bureaucracy not of the royal prerogative. Throughout the War of Liberation (1813-1815), he remained a remote figure being always subservient to the Russian Emperor Alexander. In the crisis of the Vienna Congress over the partition of Saxony, he sided with Alexander I and thereby brought Prussia to the brink of war against England, France and Austria. The final compromise allowed Prussia to acquire the Rhine Province, Westphalia, and much of Saxony. In contrast to these territorial gains, the last 25 years of Friedrich’s reign demonstrates a downward trend of Prussia’s fortunes to which his personal limitations in no small part were the cause.