This refined ornithological dinner service has been in the Dutch noble van Boetzelaer family for generations, at least since 1882, when the van Boetzelaer family, through marriage, were given the Houdringe country estate in De Bilt, a provence of Utrecht. By family repute, the service came into the van Boetzelaer family through this marriage of Baron Godfried Hendrik Leonard van Boetzelaer (1842-1914) to Jonkvrouwe Constantia Wilhelmina Barones Fabricius (1849-1928). Constantia was the daughter of the previous owner of Houdringe, Johan Carel Willem Fabricius (1795-1881), a member of the very wealthy and established noble Fabricius family in Amsterdam and Haarlem.

In the period following the Seven Years War when Saxony was crushed by Prussia, the Meissen factory was no longer seen as the pre-eminent porcelain manufactory in Europe. The present service represents a transitional style in the third quarter of the 18^th century when the influence of French porcelain in the decoration, form and use of porcelain services became more apparent whilst retaining forms and decoration which had proven so popular at the factory during the 1740s and 50s, particularly for their export clientele. It represents the naturalism of the rococo period before the confident neo-classical style adopted by the factory under the management of Count Marcolini.

The wide variety and individuality of the bird painting on the present service suggest the use of an engraved graphic source. It is a matter of record that the factory acquired Eleazar Albin’s A Natural History of Birds, Vol. I (London, 1731) in April 1745 [1] and used the ornithological studies to copy directly on to porcelain. The work of the prolific painters and engravers Jean-Baptiste Oudry and Francis Barlow are undoubtedly also influential in the subject matter portrayed. The skilled artists at.mes issen, like many ceramic artists, were adept at using engravings, not only in their entirety but in a “scissor and paste” technique to render novel and exciting scenes. The present service used a variety of identifiable European domestic and wild birds as well as African and South American species, as well as more fanciful birds, perhaps from the artists imagination.

[1] Abraham L. den Blaauwen, Meissen Porcelain in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2000, p. 317.