A Berlin plate with a scene from Goethe's Faust, circa 1821-23 The back of the plate inscribed 'XVI. Gretchen. Ach neige, Du Schmerzenreiche, Dein Antlitz gnädig meiner Noth![Ah lean down, you who are full of sorrow, incline your gracious face toward my distress (trans. Emily Ezust)' from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, first published in 1790. 25.1 cm diam., sceptre mark in under-glaze blue, painter's mark L and dash in red, impressed 22 and incised III Footnotes: Provenance: Sold at Lempertz Berlin, 2 May 2015, lot 153; The painted scene depicting the young maiden Gretchen beseeching Our Lady of Sorrows is taken from Part I of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's masterpiece, Faust, first published in 1790, with the accompanying verse inscribed on the reverse. This plate belonged to a series of twenty-four plates painted with scenes from Faust after the twenty-six engravings by Friedrich August Moritz Retzsch (1779-1857) published in 1816. These so-called cabinet plates, illustrating entire narrative sequences, were intended to decorate rooms and were not used as tableware. Two sets of twenty-four plates from the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur (KPM) depicting scenes from Faust were commissioned in 1821 and 1822 as royal gifts; the first for Prince Carl of Mecklenburg-Strelitz following his much-lauded performance as Mephistopheles in the 1819 Berlin premiere of Faust and the second as a birthday gift for Princess Louise Twelve extant plates from the first series were sold at Christie's South Kensington in 1997 and are now part of the collection at Schloss Charlottenburg in Berlin (inv. XII 10069-10080). One of the two series of twenty-four plates from the same group as the current example was sold at Sotheby's London, 17 January 2018, lot 17, now in the collection of the Frankfurter Goethe-Haus (inv. 2021-001). For further information and illustrations of other plates from the same series, see Samuel Wittwer, Raffinesse & Eleganz, 2007, pp. 74-75, pl. 85, and Evanghelia Stead, Goethe's Faust I Outlined. Moritz Retzsch's Prints in Circulation, 2023, pp. 334-338, figs. 12.1 and 12.2. This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: * * VAT on imported items at a preferential rate of 5% on Hammer Price and the prevailing rate on Buyer's Premium. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing