A Pair of Royal Copenhagen Flora Danica Porcelain Dishes and Covers

#18075w: A Pair of Royal Copenhagen Flora Danica Porcelain Dishes and Covers
Danish, 20th Century
Height 17cm, width 39cm, depth 31cm
This hand-painted pair of oval dishes and covers belongs to Royal Copenhagen's Flora Danica pattern. Each dish has deep sides and is closed by a domed cover. The cover is surmounted by a handle modelled as entwined twigs and applied with flowers, including a rose, an aster, forget-me-nots and buds, all coloured by hand. The rims are finished with a beaded gilt edge above a band of gold palmettes and pink-ground panels.
The dishes and covers are painted with botanical specimens. Each is rendered as a complete plant, with flowers, leaves, buds and root, after the engraved plates of the Flora Danica atlas. The plants include hedge bindweed (Convolvulus sepium) climbing across one cover and a cranesbill (Geranium pyrenaicum) on the other. As on the original service, their Latin names are written in script on the reverse and keyed to the volume and plate of the atlas.
The applied flowers are modelled separately and fixed before firing. Each petal is formed by hand, so the blooms stand in full relief against the twig handle. Together with the raised, tooled gilding of the borders, they place these pieces among the hollow wares of the service rather than the flat plates.
Each base carries the printed Royal Copenhagen mark in underglaze blue: a crown above ROYAL COPENHAGEN DENMARK, over the three wavy lines. The base also bears the painted pattern and form numbers (20 and 3567), painters' marks and the Latin name of the plant.
Crown Prince Frederik, later Frederik VI, ordered the Flora Danica service from the Royal Copenhagen manufactory in 1790. Its decoration was copied plant by plant from Flora Danica, the atlas of Danish native flora begun under the botanist Georg Christian Oeder in the mid-18th century. Production halted in 1802 with the service unfinished, and much of it survives in the Danish royal collection. Royal Copenhagen later revived the pattern and has produced it to order, with each piece painted, gilded and modelled by hand. Covered dishes of this form belong to the dinner and dessert service and were used at table for serving vegetables and other dishes.
$52,500