Artist: Johann Jakob Irminger (1635–1724), author of the model
Organization: Meissen Porcelain Manufactory
Origin: Germany, Meissen
Date: circa 1735–1738
Complex: Service with a Yellow Lion
Material: porcelain
Technique: overglaze painting with gilding
Dimensions: diameter 21.7 cm
Current Collection: The State Hermitage Museum
Inventory Number: ZF-16755
Hermitage ID: 354344
Rudanovsky Connection: Entered the Hermitage in 1919 from the collection of A. K. Rudanovsky.
A Meissen plate of about 1735–1738 from the «Yellow Lion» service, after a model by Johann Jakob Irminger.
Plate (ZF-16755). The State Hermitage Museum.
The plate entered the Hermitage from the collections of Prince Dolgorukov, Fersen, A. K. Rudanovsky, Oliv and Gorchakov, Shuvalova, Baron Alexander Stieglitz, and the Leningrad Art Treasures Department. It is on display in the Winter Palace, in room 305.
It is a round plate — 21.7 centimetres across — with a white ground, a brown rim and a scene of a tiger and a dragon among flowering branches.
The Object
The plate is white, with a wide rim edged in brown.
In the centre, a tiger and a dragon are painted on opposite sides, with flowering branches rising between them. Small sprays of flowers are scattered across the rim.
The composition is sparse: large areas of white separate the figures, and the effect is delicate.
The Model
The plate is after a model by Johann Jakob Irminger.
Irminger (1635–1724) was a Swiss-born artist who worked at Meissen as a designer and modeller. He was responsible for many of the factory’s early shapes and decorations, including the forms of the «Yellow Lion» service.
The model is therefore earlier than the plate: the shape was designed in the 1720s, and the plate was made in the 1730s.
The Tiger and Dragon
The tiger and the dragon are the plate’s animals.
The tiger is painted in yellow and black, crouching at the right, and the dragon is coiled at the left, in red and blue. They face each other across the white centre.
In Asian art, the tiger and the dragon are a classical pair, and their contest or complementarity is a common theme.
The Flowers
The flowers are painted in orange, blue and green.
They grow from the animals and from the branches, and they are scattered across the rim. They are stylised, with simple petals and leaves.
Flowers of this kind are a Kakiemon convention: they fill the empty spaces and give the composition its balance.
The Rim
The rim is white, with a brown edge.
It is wide and plain, and it frames the scene. The brown edge is slightly worn, and it records the plate’s age.
A plain rim is characteristic of Kakiemon-style plates: it gives the painting room and keeps the composition sparse.
The Service
The plate belongs to the «Yellow Lion» service.
The service was produced at Meissen in the 1720s and 1730s, and it included plates, dishes, tureens and flasks, all decorated with the tiger and dragon pattern. It was one of the factory’s most successful services.
The plate is one of its pieces, and it carries the service’s name.
The Date
The plate is dated to about 1735–1738.
The date places it in the later phase of the service, when the factory was producing large quantities of the pattern for the courts of Europe. The painting is confident and refined.
The plate is therefore a mature work of the Meissen workshop, and it shows the Kakiemon style at its height.
The Condition
The plate is in good condition.
Its rim is slightly worn, and the brown edge is rubbed in places, but the painting is clear and the surface is intact.
The plate has survived almost three hundred years, and it still looks fresh.
The Plate’s Size
At 21.7 centimetres, the plate is large.
It is a dinner or dessert plate, with a wide rim and a shallow well. Its size gives the painting room, and it makes the plate a surface for a picture.
Large plates were the backbone of a service: they were made in dozens, and they were used at every course.
The White
The white ground is the plate’s space.
It is the colour of the porcelain, glazed and smooth, and it gives the painting its emptiness. In the Kakiemon style, white is a material: it is the sky, the water and the paper of the picture.
The white of this plate is warm, slightly cream, and it makes the animals stand out.
The Kakiemon
The plate is painted in the Kakiemon style.
Kakiemon is a Japanese porcelain style of the seventeenth century, characterised by a white ground, asymmetrical compositions and a few colours. It was imitated by Meissen from the 1720s.
The plate’s white ground, its sparse composition and its animals are all Kakiemon features, translated into European porcelain.
The Hall
The plate is displayed in the Winter Palace, in room 305.
It stands in a case among other porcelain, and it is seen in a controlled light. Its white ground and its animals make it a striking object in the display.
The room and the plate belong together: a nineteenth-century interior and an eighteenth-century plate.
The Restitution
The plate’s record lists several collections.
The names — Dolgorukov, Fersen, Rudanovsky, Oliv, Gorchakov, Shuvalova, Stieglitz — record the plate’s passage through the great collections of imperial Russia, and its later transfer to the Hermitage.
The list is a document of Russian collecting, and it gives the plate a history beyond its making.
The Glaze
The plate is glazed.
The glaze is clear and glossy, and it covers the whole surface. It protects the painting, and it gives the porcelain its depth.
The glaze has a slight crazing in places, a network of fine cracks that comes with age, and it catches the light.
The Rim’s Edge
The rim is edged in brown.
It is a thin brown line, painted around the edge, and it frames the plate. Brown edges were common in Meissen’s Kakiemon-style wares, and they imitated the iron-brown rims of Japanese porcelain.
The brown edge is worn, and it records the plate’s use.
The Two Plates
The collection has another plate from the same service, ZF-16753.
The two are of similar size and decoration, but they differ in the arrangement of the animals: on this plate the tiger and dragon face each other across a wide white centre; on the other the composition is tighter.
Together, they show how the painters varied a fixed pattern.
Provenance
The plate carries the inventory number ZF-16755. It entered the Hermitage from the collections of Prince Dolgorukov, Fersen, A. K. Rudanovsky, Oliv and Gorchakov, Shuvalova, Baron Alexander Stieglitz, and the Leningrad Art Treasures Department.
The long list of owners records the plate’s passage through several of the great collections of imperial Russia.
In the Hermitage
The plate is on display in the Winter Palace, in room 305.
It is a fine example of Meissen’s Kakiemon style, and it preserves a small scene: a tiger, a dragon and a flowering branch, painted on a white plate.
It is a plate, and it is a picture, and it has crossed Europe and three centuries to rest in a case in the Winter Palace. It has not lost a single flower on the way.
