17 BETWIXT MARVEL AND SCIENCE THE DU PAQUIER PORCELAIN MANUFACTORY IN VIENNA CLAUDIA LEHNER-JOBST Now that the land had been successfully defended and the Ottomans had turned tail, lightness was to be the order of the day. The peace treaties concluded by Prince Eugene of Savoy- Carignan (1663–1736) affirmed mutual respect and recognition, betokened by exchange of ambassadors, symmetry in ceremonial, and the mutual bestowal of precious diplomatic gifts.1 When the Grand Ambassador of the imperial house was sent to Constantinople in 1719, he took with him a great array of gifts, all carefully selected in accordance with the habits and rank of their intended recipients; their very number gives us an idea of the hopes placed in the new era of peace and the prospects of economic and cultural advance. In April 1719, it was reported in Vienna, ‘several hundredweight of embossed silver in the form of such things as mirror frames have been shipped here from Augsburg and along with them still more precious objects will be taken to Turkey as gifts by the Imperial Grand Ambassador Count Virmont.’2 A little later they were followed by magnificent wares from the Vienna porcelain manufactory, which had been founded in the very year of the peace treaty of Passarowitz, 1718, with the same Count Damian Hugo von Virmont (1666–1722), formerly legate in Dresden, making a significant contribution to getting the new enterprise off to a successful start.3 The manufactory modellers and decorators had evidently received precise instructions concerning the preferences of the sultan and his court (fig. 1).4 In addition 1 Joseph Johann Adam I and Joseph Wenzel I von Liechtenstein were just two of a number of princes, some still young in years, who took part in Prince Eugene’s military campaigns and also shared his passion for art. 2 ‘einige Centner geschlagenes Silber/ als Spiegelrahmen etc. von Augsburg zu Wasser anhero geführet worden/so/ nebst mehr andern Kostbarkeiten/als Präsenten der Kaiserliche Groß-Bothschafter/Titl. Herr Graf von Virmont/ mit sich nach der Türkey nehmen werde.’ Wienerisches Diarium, no. 1636, 8 April 1719. In the autumn of that year, Count Damian Hugo von Virmont presented the sultan, the sultana, and various high-ranking office-holders with 108 magnificent silver objects, amongst which were mirrors over two metres high, coffee tables complete with all furnishings, sherbet bowls, and a dessert centrepiece. The silver gifts were described in a supplement to the report in the Wienerisches Diarium, no. 1679, 6 September 1719.
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