A Meissen Plate or Stand from the Möllendorf service, Circa 1761

RELATED LITERATURE

Dr. Samuel Witter, 'Interior Decoration and War Trophies - the Porcelain Table Services of Frederick the Great of Prussia', The International Ceramics Fair and Seminar handbook, London, 2009, pp. 38-39;

Dr. Samuel Wittwer, 'hat der König von Preußen die schleunige Verferttigung verschiedener Bestellungen ernstlich begehret - Friedrich der Große und das Meißner Porzellan', Keramos 208, 2010, taf. no. 46.

The service was ordered on the December 21, 1761 by King Frederick the Great of Prussia. The “Preußisch-musikalische Dessin" [Prussian-musical design] of military, musical and astronomical trophies in relief decoration was probably modelled by Freidrich Elias Meyer around 1760-61, in part after drawings by the king himself. The King stipulated that the service be painted in the red reserved for the Saxon ruler, Augustus the Strong.¹

The service is named so after the General to whom Frederick is said to have subsequently gifted it. At sixteen years old Wichard Joachim Heinrich von Möllendorf (1724 –1816) was a page at the Frederick's Prussian court. He began his distinguished military career in his twenties as an officer at the battles of Leuthen, Hochkirch and Torgau. By 1762 he had been made Major-General and received an Order of Merit for his exertions, and was appointed Governor of Berlin in 1783. Ten years later he was promoted to Generalfeldmarschall. He died in Potsdam. There is some uncertainty as to the exact date of when the service was gifted to the General though one possibility is when he was appointed Governer in 1783. The service was produced following a slightly earlier service of the same forms though with green borders, now referred to as the Ziethen service.²

_{1. See Wittwer, op. cit., 2009, p. 39.}

_{2. Named so after Prussian general Hans Joachim von Ziethen. Relatively few pieces were recorded until an extensive portion of the service, comprising over 150 pieces was sold Sotheby's Shrubland Park, Suffolk, 19th-21st September 2006, lot 821, where it had been in the collection of the family by 1860 at the latest. See Wittwer, op. cit., 2010, taf nos. 36-45.}