CIRCA 1715-1720, PERHAPS DECORATED AT AUGSBURG

Details

A BÖTTGER PORCELAIN GILT WHITE COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE FIGURE OF HARLEQUIN
CIRCA 1715-1720, PERHAPS DECORATED AT AUGSBURG
In gilt conical hat, frilled collar, his white costume gilt with quatrefoils in diagonal trellis, a gilt cape over his right arm, modeled seated playing a hurdy-gurdy, mounted on a plexiglass base
6 5⁄8 in. (17cm.) high

Provenance

The collection of Margravine Magdalene Wilhelmine von Baden-Durlach, by 1765.
Die Sammlung der Markgrafen und Grossherzöge von Baden; Sotheby's Baden-Baden, 5-21 October 1995, lot 1319.

Literature

Rainer Rückert/J Willsberger, Meissen Porzellan des 18.Jahrhunderts, Wien, 1977, pl. 20.
Birte Abraham, Commedia dell'Arte, The Patricia and Rodes Hart Collection of European Porcelain and Faience, Amsterdam, 2010, pp. 12-13.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

The present early figure can be identified in the inventory titled ‘hiher-bringugn des Silvers. P. von Basel’ of 1765 listing property belonging to the Margravine Magdalene Wilhelmine von Baden-Durlach to be transported to the castle in Karlsruhe is as'1. Ganz Weise Dreszner Porcellaine Theatralische Manns Persohn, mit Gold...' (GLA 65⁄905 (1 entirely white Dresden porcelain theatrical male figure, with gold...).

See also Meredith Chilton, Harlequin Unmasked, New Haven, 2001, p. 292, fig 69 for a gilt and white figure, perhaps the Captain, in the George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, Toronto.

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