Lot Essay
This figure is from the series of table decorations commissioned from the Meissen factory by Johann Adolph II, duke of Sachen-Weissenfels (1685-1746). The duke of Weissenfels was first cousin of Augustus the Strong, and the series is traditionally thought to have been ordered to commemorate his wedding to Frederike von Sachsen-Gotha in 1743. The table sculptures, depicting Commedia dell'Arte characters, were among the most popular and influential made at Meissen. The series appears to consist of 18 figures modelled by Peter Reinicke, with some supervisory corrections by Johann Joachim Kändler. Ten of the figures were directly, and two (the Dottore and Pantalone), were indirectly inspired by the engravings of François Joullain, some of which were after Watteau, Bérain, Gillot, Callot and Coypel, in Luigi Riccoboni's Histoire du théâtre italien, published in Paris in 1728.
The figure of Columbine (model no. 1118) was not among those figures based on François Joullain's engravings in Luigi Riccoboni's Histoire du théâtre Italien and as it does not appear in Reinicke's worknotes it is not certain what date it was created. For further discussion of the series see the essay by Meredith Chilton, ‘The Duke of Weissenfels Series’, in Reinhard Jansen (Ed.), Commedia dell'Arte: Carnival of Comedy Players, Stuttgart, 2001, pp. 16-20; see also Meredith Chilton, Harlequin Unmasked, The Commedia dell'Arte and Porcelain Sculpture, London, 2001, for further information on the series (pp. 308-9) and p. 311, cat. no. 109 for the Columbine model. For the engraved sources, see H. E. Backer, 'Komödienfiguren in der Sammlung Dr. Ernst Schneider, Düsseldorf', Keramik-Freunde der Schweiz, 1960, No. 50, p. 59-62.