KPM Berlin Imperial Vase

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Very Extraordinary Imperial Vase for the first
German Emperor Wilhelm I


Ovoid shape on an octagonal base. A royal blue fond with very fine gold decoration with the imperial crown.
In finest polychrome decoration portrait of the German Emperor Wilhelm I., also known as Wilhelm the Great (1797-1888) of the House of Hohenzollern.
Under the leadership of Wilhelm I. and his Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Prussia achieved the unification of Germany and the establishment of the German Empire.
At the reverse of the vase the “Altes Palais” in Berlin, the winter residence of Wilhelm I and his wife Augusta. It is located at the boulevard “Unter den Linden”.
The building was designed by Carl Ferdinand Langhans and build from 1834 to 1837. It has a neoclassical architecture. Today this building is part of the Berlin Humbold University.


Sceptremark and red KPM orb-mark
KPM Berlin abt. 1871


Height: 82 cm


This extraordinary large Vase was probably ordered by the Government of Prussia to pass it as a present to the first German Emperor Wilhelm I.
Provenance: German private art collection
A vase of the same shape but with different decoration is in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. The museum has purchased the vase at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1867.


Literature:
-Erich Koellmann/Margarete Jarchow, “Berliner Porzellan“, Vol. II, Page 591, Illustration No. 562
-The Art Journal Catalog of the Paris Universal Exhibition, 1867,
Ouvrier-Böttcher, Kat. No. 29