Research:
The circular floral painted porcelain plaque set within a gilt wood carved foliate rim supported on gilt bronze tripod base united by a circular ring stretcher. Each leg of rope twist form culminating in an acanthine cat paw foot. Wood screw socket to underside possibly indicating the gilt wood rim formed part of original table support. The brass legs probably applied circa 1860.

Marks:
Signed
Fecit Krüger 1819.

Provenance:
A member of the family Freiherr von Goldschmidt-Rothschild, formerly Palais Grüneburg, Frankfurt am Main

The circular floral painted porcelain top of the present table is signed Fecit Krüger 1819, and is almost certainly the work of Karl Friedrich Peter Krüger (1782-1832), flower painter at the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur (KPM), Berlin. The height of manufacture of porcelain table tops at the factory lasted from 1818 to around 1835.

A specific group of seven tables with similar tops were produced by the Manufactory between 1818-1821 for Friedrich Wilhelm III; five with lush floral design on a white or dark ground, (described as “bouquet of flowers” or “ground densely covered with flowers”), two with “coloured grapes” and one with a scene from Homer. All of the tables were originally mounted on gilt-bronze stands in the form of a palm tree, probably after a design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1777-1841). The record books indicate that the stands were priced at 236 Reichstaler and the tops at 100 Reichstaler each.²

Records from His Majesty’s Account Books in the KPM archives contain mainly orders placed by the Prussian kings Friedrich Wilhelm III and Friedrich Wilhelm IV from 1818-1850 “although the name of the recipient of the royal gift was not always entered. Many orders…were originally destined for storage, to be drawn on by the royal house according to requirement.”

One such table is at Pavlovsk Palace, in the dressing room of Empress Maria Feodorovna (1759-1828) (figure 1) and was ordered in December 1818 for “Her Majesty, the Russian Empress, mother” as a gift from Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovitch to his mother Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (n.e Sophie Dorothea von Württemberg). The Duke married Princess Charlotte, daughter of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia in 1817. Another table, also with a top signed Krüger 1818 was sold at Sotheby’s London, 8 July 2015, Lot 37 (figure 2).

The table once formed part of the Goldschmidt Rothschild collection at Palais Grüneburg, Frankfurt.

Footnotes:
1. Dr. Ilse Baer, “Table Tops from the Berlin Porcelain Manufactory (KPM) from the First Half of the
Nineteenth Century”, The International Ceramics Fair and Seminar Handbook, 2001. 11-18.
2. Ibid.