A Meissen shaped octafoil plate from the Tsarina Elizabeth I of Russia service, circa 1745, blue crossed swords mark, Pressnummer 20,

Lot 104. Hermitage inventory number in red wax. Moulded with Gotzkowski erhabene Blumen below a rim pierced and moulded with stiff-leaves, the centre painted in a bright Oriental palette with a songbird among flowering branches, the border with four quatrefoil cartouches of harbour scenes and landscapes with figures, in gilt, blue enamel scale-pattern, iron-red and puce scroll mirror-shaped panels suspending shell ornament, the border pierced and moulded and enriched in gilding - 9½ in. (24.1 cm.) wide - Estimate: £10,000-15,000

Provenance : Tsarina Elizabeth I of Russia
Ambassador Albert Weitnauer, sale Christie's Geneva, 11th November 1985, lot 366.

Note : Right; portrait of Elizabeth Petrovna (1709-62) Empress of Russia, c.1750, Russian School (18th century), by permission of the Art Gallery of Taganrog, Russia The Bridgeman Art Library.

This plate is from the service delivered to Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, in 1741. A plate from this service in the Wark Collection, Florida, is illustrated by Mary Campbell Gristina, The Wark Collection Early Meissen Porcelain The Cummer Gallery of Art, Jacksonville, Catalogue (1984), p. 229, no. 530, where three other known examples of this service which have surfaced on the open market are listed.

Christie's. A Highly Important Private Collection of Meissen & Other Continental Ceramics. 11 December 2007, 2:30 pm. 8 King Street, St. James's, London