A MENNECY (DUC DE VILLEROY) FIGURE OF AN ORIENTAL
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A MENNECY (DUC DE VILLEROY) FIGURE OF AN ORIENTAL

CIRCA 1745

Details
A MENNECY (DUC DE VILLEROY) FIGURE OF AN ORIENTAL
CIRCA 1745
Standing in a majestic pose, with a long black moustache, wearing a tunic with broad sleeves and painted with exotic yellow and iron-red flowers among blue and green foliage bordered with a yellow band with iron-red stripes and open to reveal his torso, his flowing yellow underskirt with iron-red stripes (left arm restuck at shoulder and at join of sleeve and tunic)
7 in. (17.8 cm.) high
Provenance
Acquired by the present owner's family in the mid-20th century, and thence by descent.
Special notice
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

For a very similar example, see The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1984), p. 323, no. 300. The Linsky example, which is modelled with the figure standing on a mound base, was formerly in the collection of Comte X. de Chavagnac, Paris, and subsequently in the Karrick Riggs Collection, New York. Also see Daniëlle Kisluk-Grosheide, 'The Reign of Magots and Pagods' The Metropolitan Museum Journal, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2002, No. 37, p. 181, fig. 8 for the same figure, and pp. 177-197 for a discussion of the 'exotic figures that engendered widespread fascination in late-seventeenth and eighteenth-century France, when a variety of pagods and magots imported from the Far East - and subsequently imitations from Europe, as well - became eagerly sought after by fashionable collectors and dealers alike' (p. 187).

The present figure may be inspired by Japanese figures of the late 17th century, see John Ayers, Oliver Impey, J.V.G. Mallet, Porcelain for Palaces, The Fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750 (London, 1990), p. 181, nos. 164-165. It is also very similar to the figures with hands outstretched holding candle branches on a pair of ormolu Oriental figures mounted as a candelabra, which were formerly in the René Fribourg Collection and sold by Sotheby's London on 17th-18th October 1963, lot 739, and subsequently in these Rooms on 12th December 2002, lot 14 (for an illustration of these candelabra, see page 84). Also see Hugo Morley-Fletcher, Early European Porcelain and Faience as collected by Kiyi and Edward Pflueger (London, 1993), Vol. II, pp. 72-73 for a figure of the same type but seated.

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