A RARE IMPERIAL GERMAN PORCELAIN PLAQUE DEPICTING THE ARMOUR...

Hammer

£100

A RARE IMPERIAL GERMAN PORCELAIN PLAQUE DEPICTING THE ARMOURED CRUISER PRINZ ADALBERT, 1900

the moulded biscuitware plaque in green, with a white border and the highly detailed ship modelled in white -- 8 x 4½in. (20 x 11cm.)

Prinz Adalbert, named for the founder of the Prussian Navy, was an armoured cruiser of 9,050 tons laid down in 1900, launched in 1901 and completed in 1904. Served as a Gunnery Training School ship from 1904-14, but then put on active service in the Baltic until torpedoed by British submarine E9 off Danzig on 2^nd July 1915. Repaired and returned to sea, she was targeted a second time on 23^rd October (1915), but this time the torpedo detonated her ammunition magazines causing a massive explosion and the vessel’s rapid sinking. Only three men survived from the crew of 675 and was the worst German naval loss of the war in the Baltic.