Plates

Plates from a documented mid-19th century Sèvres dessert set sold for £36,000 at Golding Young & Mawer in Grantham on April 6.

On April 14, 1746, two days before the battle that would seal his fate, Charles Edward Stuart held a lavish meal at Culloden House, the highland estate owned by Hanoverian loyalist Duncan Forbes (1685-1747) that had recently been commandeered by Jacobite forces.

No fewer than 248 pieces feature in this grand Paris porcelain table service painted with floral reserves on a green and gilt border and central flowersprays.

Included in Cottone Auctions’ March 27 sale in Geneseo, New York, this Russian imperial plate dates from the reign of Tsar Nicholas II.

When the Bolshevik government took control of the Imperial Porcelain Factory following the October Revolution of 1917, large quantities of glazed but unpainted white hard-paste porcelain plates, cups and saucers remained at the site.

This 12½in (32cm) Vincennes circular dish or plat d’entremets from the first Louis XV service sold for £95,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at Woolley & Wallis.

Pre-emption, the right of a French museum or institution to step in at the fall of the gavel to claim a lot at auctions staged in France for purchase at the hammer price, is a common occurence in such sales.

When, following the October Revolution of 1917, the Bolshevik government took control of the Imperial Porcelain Factory, large quantities of glazed but unpainted white hard-paste porcelain plates, cups and saucers remained at the site.

Among the most recognisable of all the famille rose porcelain designs produced in China for export to Europe are the so-called ‘Scotsmen’ or ‘Highlander’ plates.

Pook & Pook’s next American and International sale in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, on May 4 will feature a selection of Chinese export porcelain.

Inspired by an exhibition marking the 400th anniversary of Raphael’s birth in 1883, Alexander III (1845-94) commissioned a porcelain dinner service for use in the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoe Selo, writes Roland Arkell.