Large KPM Plaque -- The Fruit Garland After Peter Paul Rubens

Our client's magnificent and very large KPM plaque depicting The Fruit Garland after Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was painted by the German master, Carl Meinelt, circa 1880s, and measures approximately 14 by 20 inches.  Mounted in a period giltwood and gesso frame.  Plaque in excellent condition.  Frame with obvious losses and partial restorations.  Signed C Meinelt in lower right corner.

According to Christie's and the Royal Collection Trust, Meinelt was known as a painter on porcelain and watercolourist working in Bamberg from 1852 to 1886, who specialized in classical and genre subjects. He is known to have exhibited in Paris as early as 1855, and in 1862 won a bronze medal at the International Exhibition in South Kensington, London, or a work after Leonardo da Vinci.  He also worked as one of a team of artists for the porcelain painting institute of Carl Schmidt, which had been based in Bamberg, thirty miles south of Prince Albert’s home town of Coburg, since 1833.  As well as making copies of Old Master paintings, Meinelt also produced a number of popular genre scenes often focusing on idealised, female figures in rural settings, including a work purchased by Queen Victoria

This famous and adored painting by Rubens, completed in 1617, depicts seven putti carrying a large garland of fruit in a mountainous landscape and now resides in the collection of Alte Pinakothek in Munich, Germany.