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Lot Essay
This model is related to several particularly finely-modelled and rare groups which are of a more erotic nature, in which not only the gentleman's leg is exposed but also the lady's leg including her bound foot. For the example of this model in the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, see W. R. Sargent, The Copeland Collection - Chinese and Japanese Ceramic Figures, Salem, 1991, no. 59 and illustrated on the front cover. The author mentions related groups depicting men and women at everyday activities, such as ear-cleaning, teeth-cleaning, and music, wine-drinking and smoking lessons as well as the pedicure; he suggests that these activities are preliminary to sexual advances, and that all have a veiled eroticism. Another such 'pedicure' group is illustrated by C.J.A. Jörg and J. van Campen, Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1997, no. 256, p. 226. Another, from the Dr Anton C. R. Dreesmann Collection, was Christie's London, 10 April 2002, lot 500. The present group is a slightly more simplified model and its eroticsm more subtle.