Museum accessions.(George II dinner service on view at London's Somerset House)(Brief Article)

In an intriguing story of intertwining histories, 120 pieces from a magnificent dinner service ordered for George III have found their way to Britain. Some 80 examples will be on view at Somerset House in London until the end of this year. Acquired by the Rothschild Family Trusts, they will then be on indefinite loan to Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, built by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild between 1874 and 1889.

The service was ordered for George III's electoral palace in Hanover in northwestern Germany. The bulk was made by the French royal goldsmith Robert Joseph Auguste in the early 1780s (using some pieces from stock), and it was then extended by Frantz Peter Bunsen in Hanover, following the French models. Because of the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars, the service had been shipped to London by the time Hanover was invaded in 1803, but it was returned after Napoleon's abdication in 1814. and again enlarged. When Hanover, which became a kingdom in 1814, was invaded by the Prussians later in the century the service was apparently buried to protect it. In 1924 it was sold, and half was acquired by Alphonse de Rothschild, Ferdinand's nephew. On his death, twenty-three pieces were bequeathed to the Musee du Louvre, and the remainder went to a private collector from whom the Rothschild Family Trusts have now obtained it.

Fittingly, the service will be displayed first at Somerset House, designed by George III's favorite architect, Sir William Chambers, where it will be joined by two wine coolers originally from the service and now in the Royal Collection, which will be on loan from Elizabeth II, George III's four times great granddaughter.

Margo Grant Walsh, a well-known ...