Meissen 1737-40
Large porcelain candlesticks with elaborate gold decoration on all sides, showing the polychrome alliance coat of arms of the Empress Dowager Wilhelmine Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the base on all four sides. She married the future Emperor Joseph I in Vienna in 1699, who died in 1711.
Three children were born of the marriage, her eldest daughter Maria Josepha married in 1719 the later Elector of Saxony, King of Poland, August III, son of August the Strong.
The commission from the Meissen manufactory was a gift to the empress dowager mother-in-law. The pair of candlesticks shown here has survived in private hands. There are four pairs in the world, three are in the Ecclesiastical Treasury in Vienna. The use of the candlesticks was probably not only intended for an altar, but possibly also for a festive laid banquette, as the depiction of coats of arms on all four sides suggest.
The model is by Johann Joachim Kaendler and Johann Friedrich Eberlein.
Height 53,3 cm.