{"product_id":"german-navy-light-cruiser-sms-emden-1914-porcelain-wall-plaque-metzler-ortloff","title":"German Navy Light Cruiser SMS Emden 1914 Porcelain Wall Plaque Metzler \u0026 Ortloff","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn oval German porcelain wall plaque decorated with the light cruiser S.M.S. \u003cem\u003eEmden\u003c\/em\u003e under way at sea, captioned beneath the ship \"S.M.Kl. Kreuzer „Emden\" 1914.\" (His Majesty's Light Cruiser \u003cem\u003eEmden\u003c\/em\u003e, 1914). The reverse carries the green crowned \"M\u0026amp;O\" mark, used by the firm from about 1890 to 1945, of the porcelain factory of Metzler \u0026amp; Ortloff at Ilmenau in Thuringia. The plaque measures approximately 9½ inches (24 cm) wide and 6⅝ inches (17 cm) high.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe plaque is formed as a shallow oval tray with a broad, rounded white rim stepped down to a flat central field. The scene fills the field: the cruiser is shown from the starboard bow, steaming from left to right through a dark blue sea under a pale grey and blue sky with banks of cloud. Her three tall funnels trail black smoke aft, and the two masts with their searchlight platforms, the forward bridge and conning tower, the rigging and wireless aerials, a flag flying aft and another forward, and the crest on her bow are all rendered in fine detail. A bow wave curls white along her waterline. The caption is lettered in black script in the sea below the ship. The finish of the ship and rigging suggests a printed outline completed by hand, a common technique for decorated porcelain of the period. The reverse is glazed, with an unglazed foot rim, and carries an impressed script \"S.\" near the top, an impressed model number \"3638\/1\" at the lower edge, the green printed crown above \"M\u0026amp;O\" at lower left, and the green printed initials \"G.G.\" above \"ges. gesch.\" (\u003cem\u003egesetzlich geschützt\u003c\/em\u003e, legally protected, the usual notice of a registered design) at lower right, together with a small painted number, 904. A raised lug at the top of the reverse is pierced for hanging and fitted with a later green-covered wire loop. A small typed paper label applied to the reverse reads \"Kaiserl. Marinemaler Fritz Stoltenberg 1855 - 1921\" (Imperial marine painter Fritz Stoltenberg); the label appears to be a later collector's attribution, and no artist's signature is visible on the face.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eEmden\u003c\/em\u003e was the second of the two \u003cem\u003eDresden\u003c\/em\u003e-class light cruisers, built at the Kaiserliche Werft in Danzig, launched in May 1908 and commissioned in July 1909. She spent her service life with the East Asia Squadron, based at the German protectorate of Tsingtao in China. When war broke out in August 1914 Vice Admiral Maximilian von Spee took the main squadron across the Pacific, but detached \u003cem\u003eEmden\u003c\/em\u003e under her captain, Fregattenkapitän Karl von Müller, to raid commerce in the Indian Ocean. Over the following three months she captured or sank more than twenty British and Allied merchant ships, shelled the oil tanks at Madras on 22 September 1914, and on 28 October entered the harbour at Penang disguised with a dummy fourth funnel, where she sank the Russian cruiser \u003cem\u003eZhemchug\u003c\/em\u003e and the French destroyer \u003cem\u003eMousquet\u003c\/em\u003e. Von Müller's practice of releasing captured crews aboard ships he let go, rather than holding them prisoner, won him respect even in the British press.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHer cruise ended on 9 November 1914 at the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, where she had landed a party to destroy the cable and wireless station on Direction Island. The Australian light cruiser HMAS \u003cem\u003eSydney\u003c\/em\u003e, escorting a troop convoy nearby, was sent to intercept her, and after a gun action of about an hour and a half the badly damaged \u003cem\u003eEmden\u003c\/em\u003e was driven aground on North Keeling Island. The landing party under Kapitänleutnant Hellmuth von Mücke, left ashore on Direction Island, seized the old schooner \u003cem\u003eAyesha\u003c\/em\u003e and, by way of the Dutch East Indies, Arabia, and the Ottoman Empire, made its way back to Germany. In Germany \u003cem\u003eEmden\u003c\/em\u003e became one of the most celebrated ships of the conflict, and her name and exploits were reproduced on postcards, medals, porcelain, and household objects. The \"1914\" in the caption ties this plaque to that year of her cruise.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFritz Stoltenberg, named on the label, was born in Kiel in 1855, the son of a sea captain, and studied at the academies of Weimar, Munich, and Kassel. He worked among the Skagen painters in Denmark in 1884, settled in Kiel in 1889, published some two thousand illustrations, mainly engravings, in the popular weeklies, and painted the German fleet and its crews on the Kiel Fjord. He retired to Schönberg in 1914 and died there in 1921. His connection with the design on this plaque is stated only on the later label and cannot be confirmed from the plaque itself. Metzler \u0026amp; Ortloff, which traded under that name at Ilmenau from 1875 after its founding in 1873 as Höhn \u0026amp; Metzler, was a manufacturer of decorative porcelain, figures, and table wares.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCondition is very good. The porcelain is free of visible chips, cracks, or restoration, and the glaze and decoration are bright. There is a small brown mark in the sea to the left of the caption. The unglazed foot rim on the reverse shows light toning and surface grime, with a few small dark spots. The paper label is intact.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePorcelain commemoratives of \u003cem\u003eEmden\u003c\/em\u003e were made in 1914 and the years that followed to mark the most famous single-ship cruise of the war, and the plaque combines a detailed portrait of the ship with a named German maker's mark. It suits a collection of Imperial German naval material, of the East Asia Squadron, or of patriotic porcelain of the First World War.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Derrittmeister Militaria Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51417578438895,"sku":"13-957","price":295.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/9169\/5855\/files\/IMG_9921.jpg?v=1793919142","url":"https:\/\/derrittmeister.com\/products\/german-navy-light-cruiser-sms-emden-1914-porcelain-wall-plaque-metzler-ortloff","provider":"Derrittmeister Militaria Group","version":"1.0","type":"link"}