Swan Service

Swan Service in the National Museum in Warsaw

The Swan Service (German: Schwanenservice, Polish: Serwis łabędzi) is a large service of baroque Meissen porcelain which was made for the First Minister of the Electorate of Saxony and favourite of king Augustus III of Poland, Heinrich von Brühl. Augustus had made Brühl the Supervisor of the Meissen works in 1733, then in August 1739 its director.[1] The Swan Service has been called "the most famous high baroque production in Meissen porcelain",[2] "a triumph of modelling and firing",[3] and "the most fabulous tableware conceived in porcelain".[4] After earlier work with prototypes, the Meissen designers and modellers Johann Joachim Kändler, Johann Friedrich Eberlein and (from about 1741) Johann Gottlieb Ehder created the service, which consists of over 2,200 individual pieces, between 1737 and 1741 or 1742.[5][2]

  1. ^ Ostrowski, 343; Untermyer, 118
  2. ^ a b Ostrowski, 343
  3. ^ Coutts, 95
  4. ^ Grigaut
  5. ^ "Swan Service | porcelain tableware". Encyclopedia Britannica.