Rare Rothschild Bird service goes (gently) under the hammer
At your service - for £3,000. Tony Henderson reports
It will be a case of taking tea in style after a porcelain 213-piece service sold for £3,000 at a Tyneside auction.
The Herend dinner, tea and coffee service in the famed “Rothschild Bird” pattern was sold by Newcastle auctioneers Anderson & Garland.
The vast Hungarian porcelain service, in a pattern originally made for the Rothschild family, was first introduced in 1850 and remains synonymous with aristocratic and royal taste.
Richly decorated with colourful birds, butterflies, insects and delicate foliage, the pattern is said to have been chosen by Princess Diana prior to her 1981 marriage to Prince Charles.
The service came from a County Durham vendor who received it for her own wedding.
Decorated with birds, insects and butterflies, the service comprised 24 dinner plates, 24 cheese plates, 12 soup plates, 23 side plates, 12 pudding plates, 24 tea plates, two large oval serving platters, two circular serving platters, two triangular serving dishes, a square serving dish, 12 crescent-shaped vegetable dishes, two teapots and covers, 10 coffee cups, 11 saucers, six teacups, and five saucers.
Also included were two scallop-shaped dishes, a leaf-shaped pickle dish, two spoon trays, three jugs, two sugar bowls, a bonbon dish, 11 small dishes, two small tureens and covers, four condiments, two mustard pots, a toast rack, two egg cups, a centrepiece vase, 18cms, a hexagonal canister vase and cover, a waisted vase, and five miniature vases.
Head of ceramics at Anderson & Garland, Nigel Smith, said: “The Rothschild Bird pattern is one of the most iconic porcelain services ever produced by Herend, and this was a quite rare and exceptionally extensive example.
“It is suggested that Baroness Rothschild lost a pearl necklace at her residence in Vienna. The next day her gardener apparently found it in the beak of a bird, playing with it in a tree.