A DREAM IN BLUE AND WHITE – The Porcelain

A dream in blue and white

The Porcelain Cabinet in Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin

DETAIL OF AN ARRANGEMENT

BY DR. SAMUEL WITTWER

As a rule, princely apartments in Baroque castles were not used for private retreat and relaxation. They were semi-public places of encounter, exercise of power and self-expression. The sequence of rooms was fixed: their use but also their furnishing corresponded to the requirements of the actions that, according to the ceremonial, took place in them. Perhaps it is easier to imagine this if we consider that even today, for example, we serve guests an aperitif in the salon, then lead them to the dining room for dinner, and finally have coffee in the library.

In the Baroque period, in German residences, at the end of such an apartment there was usually a room called a cabinet, which gave the prince or princess the opportunity to withdraw, or to have a confidential conversation. These cabinets were therefore small, comfortable, and often served to house special collections. They are rooms characterized by personal preferences of the owners. The cabinet at the end of the state apartment in Charlottenburg Palace is therefore very unusual. The room was inaugurated by the first Prussian king Frederick I in 1706, a year after the death of his wife Sophie Charlotte. Both were enthusiastic about Asian art and especially loved Chinese and Japanese porcelains. It can be assumed that they did not give the architect of the room, Johann Friedrich Eosander, a free hand in the development of the decor, but rather contributed ideas.

The room is the same size as the audience chamber four rooms in front of it, and significantly larger than the rest of the rooms in the apartment. Almost half of the walls are covered with very large and, at the time, extremely precious mirrors. In addition, the six large French windows leading to the terrace overlooking the garden also looked like mirrored surfaces in the dark. However, the impression of the room is dominated by the nearly 3,000 Chinese and a few Japanese porcelains: large bowls, plates and saucers

set with plaster directly into the gold-coloured walls, small tea bowls, slop bowls and vases standing on finely carved, gilded consoles, plates set into freely suspended metal frames from which miniature vases hang like tassels, or large lidded vases on étagères with glittering nashiji lacquer decoration - all this results in a bewildering splendour in blue and white.

This unique creation, which still enchants visitors to Charlottenburg Palace today, was comprehensively described and illustrated with two views in the important historical chronicle “Theatrum Europaeum” in 1717 and 1718. The illustrations carried the fame of the room all over the world. Numerous German princes were inspired by it and commissioned similar cabinets, which were exceedingly richly furnished with Asian porcelain. Although the Charlottenburg Porcelain Cabinet was certainly the most famous example of this genre at the Prussian court, it belonged to a whole series: the mother of Frederick I - Henriette Louise of OrangeNassau - had already furnished a porcelain room in her Oranienburg Palace, located north of Berlin. Unfortunately, we know neither what it looked like nor what pieces were in it. However, the little information available indicates that the room was entirely in the tradition of the porcelain rooms of her native Holland. That is, it was lined with gold-leather wallcovering and presented porcelains on consoles, cabinet stands and tables. When her son took over the regency in 1688, he remodelled this palace. He set up a room at the end of the new state apartment, with plates and saucers of blue and white porcelain set into its white-painted walls. Mirrored surfaces, gilded consoles and monumental étagères in the shape of pyramids presented coups and vases. This room, which was completed in 1695, was also very special for its size and architectural elements. The porcelain chambers in the Royal houses of Malchow and Caputh were proportionally much smaller, but were shown by their owners to high guests - such as August the Strong of Saxony, King in Poland, or Frederick IV of Denmark - with as much pride as the large chambers.

But why did Frederick invest so much in these rooms, where no audience was given, no food was served, and no games were played, which were only meant for viewing? To answer this question, it is worth taking a look at the ceilings. The ceiling painting of the oldest still existing porcelain chamber in Caputh shows an allegory of Europe, to whom porcelains are presented by black figures and putti. It is not fantasy pieces that are depicted there, but recognizable types of Kraak, Kakiemon and Yixing wares. The same applies to the painting by Augustin Terwesten on the ceiling in Oranienburg, in the centre of which an allegory of Orange sits. In Charlottenburg, the ceiling by Jan Anthonie de Coxie shows no porcelains, but the richest pictorial program: Aurora and Apollo as allegories of Sophie Charlotte and Frederick I, ride one behind the other on chariots over the clouds, in front of them a figure drives away death and darkness. They are surrounded by many people and animals, all of which represent various allegories of time and space. This expresses that the new royal couple will bring light and a good age, forever and throughout the whole kingdom. This is made possible for them by “the foundation” on which they operate, namely the porcelain-clad walls. Since the blue and white porcelains at that time could also be understood as a symbol for The Netherlands; the viewer is told here in a suggestive way, that the impending flowering of Prussia is connected to its kinship with the House of Orange. In all likelihood, then, the large Wucai lidded vases, which were presented with particular emphasis and, unlike most of the other pieces, were already several decades old when the room was inaugurated, came from the Orange heritage.

Unfortunately, we know very little about individual porcelains that were originally in the Charlottenburg porcelain chamber. The two copperplate engravings from 1717 and 1718 do hint at decorations, so that,

for example, one believes to recognize a row of large Kraak bowls at the top of the entablature. However, there are no other sources, such as inventories, to confirm this. When enemy troops looted and devastated rooms in Charlottenburg Palace during the Seven Years’ War in 1760, much was also broken in the porcelain cabinet. The empty spaces were subsequently filled with plates, tea bowls and vases collected from other places. Shortly after 1820, the miniature vases were supplemented with copies from the Berlin porcelain manufactory KPM. However, it was the Second World War which had a truly devastating effect on the room. Fortunately most of the porcelains could be moved to safe places during the war, but after 1945 they were transported to Russia by the trophy troops of the Red Army and are now still in a museum depot in St. Petersburg. When the castle was almost completely destroyed by bombs in November 1943, the ceiling collapsed. Nevertheless, so much of the wall decoration was preserved that the room could be restored and reconstructed. When refurnishing the room with porcelain in the 1960s, however, those responsible were not guided by the pre-war photographs, but by the prints of the early 18th century. Since only about 70 of over 4500 Asian porcelains in the entire palace remained at the time, the replacement pieces were acquired on the art market. A larger number - for example the large Kraak bowls - came from the 1986 auction of the so-called Hatcher Cargo. While the appearance before 1943 was rather colourful and made up of different types due to the many additions, today the porcelain cabinet presents itself very uniformly: blue and white porcelains from the mid-17th century and especially from the period around 1700 are complemented by a few lidded pots in five-colour decoration (wucai) and a small amount Japanese pieces.

Hardly any other room today conveys the fascination of German porcelain cabinets so impressively. The Charlottenburg room was the model for a large number of porcelain chambers, and it is striking that it was almost without exception Protestant princes who followed this model. Their creations - whether in Weikersheim, Rudolstadt, Arnstadt or elsewhere - also place more emphasis on the quantity of porcelain than on the decoration with other artistic means. Moreover, they invariably feature monograms or coats of arms indicating the owners and their dynasty. The Dutch of the United Seven Provinces in the north were the heroes of the Protestant princes, not least because of the expulsion of the Catholic Spaniards. Even if there were no kinship ties to the House of Orange, as was the case in Brandenburg-Prussia, they were thus able to express a connection via the porcelain as a symbol for the Calvinist Netherlands. Last but not least, it was demonstrably the Prussian porcelain chambers - and Charlottenburg in particular - that spurred Augustus the Strong on to his passion for collecting in the wake of his visits in 1709 and 1728 and inspired the idea of the Japanese Palace in Dresden. But this is another story.

The Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation BerlinBrandenburg is currently in the process of completing an online inventory catalogue of Asian porcelain, which will be available on the Internet in 2023 or 2024 at the latest. The several thousand objects will also provide detailed commentary and illustrations of the entire current holdings of the Charlottenburg Porcelain Cabinet, as well as 3D visualizations that will allow online users to experience the cabinet. This is a wonderful enrichment for enthusiasts and scholars alike, although one has to admit: the impression one has when entering this room cannot be matched by any other medium. See for yourself, you are cordially invited!

Dr. Samuel Wittwer Director of Palaces and Collections Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg

Samuel Wittwer (b. 1967) studied History of Art at the university of Basel and trained as a porcelain restorer. After working for the Pauls-Eisenbeiss Foundation in Basel, he was appointed curator of the ceramics collections of the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin Brandenburg in 1999. He wrote and published his thesis The Gallery of Meissen - Augustus the Strong’s Menagerie for the Japanese Palace in Dresden in 2004 (German) and 2006 (English). In 2008, he was promoted to director of the foundation. ◆ spsg.de

Hardly any other room today conveys the fascination of German porcelain cabinets so impressively