Berlin Porcelain Manufactory tea and coffee service, blue and white ground with gilded decoration and dark circular reserves based on a set of twenty-six engravings from silhouettes by Princess Elizabeth, the third daughter of George III and Queen Charlotte. They were published in 1795 under the title The Birth and Triumph of Cupid whose progress is portrayed in a series of episodes denoted by the gilded captions.

The captions on the pieces are:

• on the teapot - ‘Preparing for triumph’, ‘Triumphant’
• on the coffee pot - ‘Offering up the hearts’, ‘Uniting the hearts’
• on the milk jug - ‘Drives the doves’, ‘Going to the temple of Venus’
• on the sugar basin - ‘Ascends the hill with hope’, ‘Resting on hope, strikes the heart’
• on the cups - ‘Mistakes his mark’, ‘Alighting on the world’, ‘Weeps for the loss of his bow & arrows’, ‘Meets a hart’, ‘Stringing his bow’, ‘Returning thanks’
• on the saucers - ‘Turns away in despair’, ‘Sharpening his arrows’, ‘Going in search of the world’, ‘Finds his bow and arrows’, ‘In vexation breaks his bow’, ‘His arms restored’

The decoration of porcelain with designs by amateur lady artists had been pioneered by Wedgwood in the 1780s. Princess Elizabeth’s published designs were particularly well suited to such use. According to the note which accompanied the gift of sixteen pieces of this service to King Edward VII in 1907, Princess Elizabeth executed the paintings herself in collaboration with her sister, the Princess Royal. This seems unlikely and the mis-spelling of some of the gilded inscriptions suggests that the decoration was done in the factory. Such a set, in the rather austere antique-glatt pattern, would normally also have included an oval tray. Several sets were included in Queen Charlotte’s posthumous sale; a similar Berlin service, with coloured reserves based on the same designs as here, is in the Johann Jacobs Museum, Zürich.

Comprising teapot, coffee pot, milk jug, sugar basin, 4 cups and 6 saucers

Catalogue entry adapted from George III & Queen Charlotte: Patronage, Collecting and Court Taste, London, 2004