Pair of Royal Copenhagen 'Flora Danica' Porcelain Lidded Tureens

#18075z: Pair of Royal Copenhagen 'Flora Danica' Porcelain Lidded Tureens
Danish, 20th century
Height 16cm, diameter 23.5cm

This pair of hand-painted tureens belongs to the Flora Danica service of the Royal Copenhagen manufactory, in which every piece carries a botanical study after the plates of the Flora Danica atlas and is inscribed on the reverse with the name of the plant depicted. Initiated by the botanist Georg Christian Oeder and issued in fascicles from 1761, the atlas set out to record the wild plants of the lands under the Danish crown, and its engravings have supplied the service's painters with their models since its inception.
The decoration is organised around a broad gilt band of stylised palmettes framed by rows of gilt beading, at which the deep circular bowl meets its domed cover. Above and below the band run rectangular panels with pink borders punctuated by raised gilt dots, with sprigs of green foliage and small pink bellflowers set between them. The handles are modelled in high relief as gnarled flowering branches, each terminating in a cluster of applied blossoms in yellow, pink, mauve and blue.
The principal studies are painted on the covers against the white ground. One shows narrow-leaved everlasting pea, its winged stems, coiling tendrils and pink flowers spreading across the dome; the other shows yellow archangel, with whorls of yellow flowers and toothed foliage above a trailing stem drawn down to the roots.
On the reverse of each cover are two Royal Copenhagen marks, a shape number, a painter's monogram and the Latin name of the plant, inscribed 'Lathyrus silvestris var.? Müll.' and 'Galeopsis Galeobdolon L.' respectively.
The original service was commissioned by the Danish court in 1790 and painted by Johann Christoph Bayer. It is traditionally said to have been intended for Catherine II of Russia as a gesture of reconciliation after Denmark, bound by treaty to Russia, withdrew from the Russo-Swedish War of 1788–90. Catherine died in 1796, before the service was completed in 1802, and it remained with the Danish crown. The pattern was revived in 1863 for a service presented to Princess Alexandra of Denmark on her marriage to the Prince of Wales, and Royal Copenhagen has produced it since, in limited numbers and painted by hand.
$12,000