Royal Copenhagen and Bing & Grøndahl: marks and dating

Royal Copenhagen has marked its porcelain with three wavy lines in blue under the glaze ever since the factory was founded in 1775. Bing & Grøndahl, founded in 1853, used B&G and three towers taken from the Copenhagen coat of arms. Beside the marks there is often a crown, the name of the country, the painter’s number and small lines, and it is the combination of these that dates a piece. The factories merged in 1987, so later wares from both often bear the Royal Copenhagen name.

Facts

Two factories in the same city

Royal Copenhagen, in Danish long known as Den Kongelige Porcelainsfabrik, was founded in Copenhagen in 1775 with the backing of the Dowager Queen Juliane Marie. The factory made hard-paste porcelain on Chinese and German models, and its first pattern, Musselmalet, has been painted by hand ever since.

Bing & Grøndahl was founded in 1853 by the brothers Meyer Herman and Jacob Herman Bing together with the modeller Frederik Vilhelm Grøndahl, and soon became the royal factory’s rival. Both factories made dinner services, figurines and art porcelain, and both marked their wares clearly. In 1987 they merged, and today several Bing & Grøndahl designs are made under the Royal Copenhagen name.

The three waves

The Royal Copenhagen mark is three wavy lines, painted in cobalt blue on the unfired body so that they end up under the glaze. The lines are usually explained as the three straits around the Danish islands: the Øresund, the Great Belt and the Little Belt. Because the mark lies under the glaze it does not wear off, and it has been used in almost the same form for over two hundred years.

The waves alone therefore reveal little about the date. What distinguishes one decade from another is what surrounds them: a printed crown above the waves, which appeared towards the end of the 19th century, the factory name in a ring, the text Danmark or DENMARK, and various lines below or above the waves and the letters. Backstamp charts for the factory show which combination belongs to which period, and the same method is used for all the major factories in the guide to porcelain marks.

The painter’s number and seconds

Hand-painted Royal Copenhagen porcelain often bears the painter’s number or initials in blue or green beside the waves, and sometimes a model number. Under a plate in Musselmalet there may therefore be the factory mark, the painter’s sign and a number for the shape. The number tells you which part of the service it is, and the variant of the pattern – plain or ribbed edge, half lace or full lace – can be seen in the decoration.

One or more lines ground through the waves mean that the piece was sold as a second or third quality, with small flaws in the glaze or painting. This is not a sign of forgery, but it affects the value. Always examine the mark carefully in raking light: a ground notch shows up as a matt trace in the glossy glaze.

Flora Danica and Krog’s underglaze painting

The Flora Danica service, painted in 1790–1802, is the factory’s most famous work. Each piece bears an accurately depicted Danish plant with its Latin name beneath, after the copperplate engravings in the botanical work Flora Danica. The service was probably intended as a gift for Catherine the Great but stayed in Denmark when she died in 1796. The pattern has since been made anew, and the later pieces bear the marks of their own time.

When the architect Arnold Krog became artistic director in 1885, he renewed both Musselmalet and the factory’s art porcelain. He developed an underglaze painting in pale blue, grey and green, with misty Nordic landscapes and animals inspired by Japanese models, and the factory won the Grand Prix in Paris in 1889. Vases from Krog’s time often bear both the factory mark and the artist’s signature, like the other pieces of Art Nouveau art pottery.

Bing & Grøndahl’s towers, the Seagull and the Christmas plates

The Bing & Grøndahl mark is the letters B&G beneath three towers, taken from the towers in the Copenhagen coat of arms. The mark exists in many variants, in blue, green and other colours, often with the factory name, the name of the country and a model number. As with Royal Copenhagen, it is the variant of the mark and the text around it that provide the date.

The factory’s most widespread service is the Seagull (Måsen), which Fanny Garde designed in 1895, with grey gulls on white porcelain and a gilt rim. In the same year Bing & Grøndahl began issuing Christmas plates with a new motif and the year for each Christmas, the first of their kind, and Royal Copenhagen followed with its own Christmas plates from 1908. Christmas plates are the easiest porcelain of all to date: the year appears in the decoration.

How to go about it

Turn the piece over and read everything beneath the base: the waves or towers, the crown, the names, the numbers and the lines. Decide whether the mark is painted under the glaze or printed on top, and then compare it with a backstamp chart for the factory. The pattern and shape should belong to the same period as the mark; a modern shape number beneath a decoration claimed to be from the 18th century is a warning sign.

The porcelain itself also tells you something. Hard-paste porcelain is translucent against the light, and the rim of the foot is unglazed. Read more about the factories on the ceramics page and about the marks of the Swedish factories in the guides to Rörstrand backstamps and Gustavsberg backstamps.

How to recognise it

Exercise

Someone has ground a line through the three waves beneath a Royal Copenhagen cup. What does it mean?