Set of Twelve Royal Copenhagen Flora Danica Porcelain Side Plates

18075cc: Set of Twelve Royal Copenhagen Flora Danica Porcelain Side Plates
By Royal Copenhagen (Danish, founded 1775)
Height: 4.5cm, diameter: 22cm
This set comprises twelve hard-paste porcelain side plates decorated in the Flora Danica pattern, each individually hand-painted with a different botanical specimen after the eighteenth-century Danish botanical encyclopaedia. Every plate depicts a single flowering plant rendered with naturalistic precision, showing not only the blossom but also the foliage and, in many cases, the root structure, in keeping with the scientific tradition from which the service takes its inspiration. Among the specimens are a yellow poppy, a pink-flowered bittercress, a marsh marigold with rounded leaves, a flowering willow branch, and a rooted dandelion, each shown against the white ground.
The decoration is framed by the service's border, moulded with a pierced gilt rim and painted with pink-and-gilt panels and raised gilt bosses, the ornament associated with the Flora Danica pattern.
The Flora Danica service traces its origins to 1790, when the Danish Royal Porcelain Manufactory embarked upon one of the most ambitious porcelain projects ever undertaken. Conceived as a diplomatic gift for Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, the service was designed so that every piece illustrated a different botanical specimen taken from Flora Danica, the eighteenth-century encyclopaedia documenting the flora of the Kingdom of Denmark. Following the Empress's death before its completion, the service remained in Denmark. The practice of individually hand-painting each specimen, identified by its Latin name on the reverse, has continued ever since.
Each plate bears the Royal Copenhagen factory marks on the reverse: the green crowned factory mark, the three blue wavy lines that have been the manufactory's emblem since its founding in 1775, together with the model number, the Latin name of the plant, and the individual painter's marks.
$ 27,000