Object Number: #611
Johann Jakob II Bruglocher
Augsburg 1737-39
Literature:
see. Dr. Seling No. 2027, 211
37 cm wide, Wheight: 2.816 gr
Pictures
Detailed Information
Tapering fluted oval body with two scroll handles. At the edge of the lid engraved inventory number and weight. No. fourth 16 = 4 = 3.
Provenance
On the cover and the wall engraved initials “FF” for Friedrich Franz I, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg – Schwerin (1756-1837).
Friedrich Franz was the son of Ludwig, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1725-1778) and Charlotte Sophie, Duchess of Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld (d.1810). He married Luise, Princess of Sachsen-Gotha-Roda (d. 1808) on 31 May 1775. Friedrich Franz I succeeded his uncle Friedrich der Fromme to the throne after his death in 1785.
One of his first political acts was to close down Friedrichs-Universität, the University that his uncle had built in 1760 in Bützow. He also bought back Wredehagen, Marnitz, Eldena and Plau, the municipalities which had been pawned to Prussia in 1734. Though Schwerin suffered a great deal from the Napoleonic occupation, with Friedrich Franz I being forced into exile in Altona near Hamburg, for a short time in 1807, cultural life at the court continued, and after the peace-treaty of 1815 the artefacts that Napoleon had seized were brought back from Paris. It was Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, a General from Schwerin, who came to the Duke of Wellington’s aid at Waterloo in June 1815, thus bringing about the defeat of Napoleon. In the same year, Friedrich Franz I received the title of Grand Duke. Acknowledged as a liberal, peacefully inclined ruler, Friedrich Franz I was, among many things, responsible for the abolition of corporal punishment.