The Piece
A broad band of encrusted gold runs the rim, stamped with a continuous scroll-and-trefoil pattern that catches light differently at every angle — matte where the tooling bites, mirror-bright on the flats. Inside it, an iron-red arabesque border winds around the well: stylized pomegranates and fanned carnations rendered in fine engraved line, the red laid so precisely the crosshatching inside each blossom stays crisp at reading distance. A second gold band, narrower and chased with a chevron braid, closes the border and hands the eye to a plain white center. The porcelain is hard, white, and thin at the verge; the back carries the green crowned CM shield of C.M. Hutschenreuther, Hohenberg, the pattern name Princess Louise in script, and decoration number 02694/40.
History & Provenance
C.M. Hutschenreuther was the first industrial porcelain factory in Bavaria, founded at Hohenberg an der Eger in 1814 by Carolus Magnus Hutschenreuther, and it spent the next century and a half setting the standard for German export porcelain. This plate belongs to the firm's postwar golden period: the Hohenberg mark reading simply "Germany" was in use from 1948 to 1970 — after the "US Zone" stamps of the occupation years, before the 1969 merger folded the Hohenberg works into the larger Hutschenreuther concern. Call it 1948 to 1960.
The decoration is the firm's answer to the gold-encrusted service plates that American hosts had prized since the twenties — a Gilded Age formula carried forward with postwar precision. The iron-red arabesque is the distinguishing choice: where most encrusted patterns paired their gold with cobalt or left the band alone, Princess Louise sets it against a warm engraved red in the manner of the old Meissen and Vienna palace services. It reads formal without reading cold.
Product Details
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Object | Dinner plate |
| Maker | C.M. Hutschenreuther, Hohenberg an der Eger |
| Marks | Green crowned CM shield, "Hutschenreuther Hohenberg Germany"; pattern name "Princess Louise" in script; decoration number 02694/40 |
| Style | Neoclassical formal, gold-encrusted |
| Materials | Hard-paste porcelain, encrusted and burnished gold, iron-red enamel |
| Technique | Acid-etched and roll-stamped gold encrustation over the rim; engraved-style transfer arabesque in iron red; chevron-chased inner gold band |
| Form | Circular, flat rim, shallow well |
| Origin | Hohenberg an der Eger, Bavaria, Germany |
| Era | c. 1948–1960 |
| Dimensions | Approx. 10¾″ diameter |
| Condition | Excellent. Gold encrustation bright and unworn, red enamel crisp, no chips, cracks, or utensil marks observed. Light adhesive residue to the reverse will lift with warm water. Condition Guaranteed. |
| Availability | One of a Kind — 1 Available. |
Why It Belongs in Your Home
This is the plate that makes the table. Use it as a charger under plain white and the gold band frames every course; hang it and it holds a wall the way a small gilt mirror does. The red-and-gold palette earns its keep hardest from October through the holidays — against evergreen, against candlelight, against a walnut table it is exactly right — but the arabesque is disciplined enough to work in July. And because the center is undecorated, it actually serves: cake, cheese, oranges, whatever the occasion puts on it, with the ornament kept to the border where it belong
