Plate (part of a service)
Manufactory Sèvres Manufactory French
Painted decoration by Jean-Baptiste Tandart French
Gilded by Michel-Barnabé Chauvaux French
Not on view
Shortly after Prince Henry of Prussia, traveling incognito as the comte d’Oels, arrived in Paris on August 17, 1784, preparations were made to present him with an impressive group of Sèvres porcelain on the occasion of his visit to Versailles.1 The largest component of this royal gift, valued at 25,462 livres and 16 sols overall, consisted of a green-ground dessert service, of which this plate was part.2 Decorated with polychrome flowers and fruits by several Sèvres painters, the pieces bear the date letters for either 1782 or 1784, underscoring the haste with which the 124-part service was assembled.3 Henry, the younger brother of Frederick the Great, also received biscuit figures and groups, ditto busts of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (cats. 84, 85), and other porcelains. The set was sold after Henry’s death in 1802, and a number of plates from the dessert service entered the Metropolitan’s collection in 1937 with the bequest of Emma T. Gary.
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