A pair of Meissen models of sparrowhawks

CIRCA 1745, ONE WITH PRESSNUMMER 45 TWICE

Details

A pair of Meissen models of sparrowhawks
Circa 1745, one with Pressnummer 45 twice
Modelled by J.J. Kändler, with brown and grey bodies with black markings and black wing and tail feathers, yellow and black beaks and feet, perched to left and right eating their prey, one with a mouse in its claws, the other with a bird, on tall tree-stump bases applied with foliage and one with a beetle and mushrooms (one with restoration to tail and wing feathers and one wing of prey, the other with one claw repaired, slight restoration to mouse and two legs of mouse partly lacking, restoration to one cut-off branch of tree-stump, legs of beetle and foliage, both with slight chips to foliage)
11½in. (29cm.) high (2)

Lot Essay

See Carl Albiker, op. cit. (1959), no. 86 for a similar example of the bird on the right. Kändler's Taxa for April 1734 mentions '1 Rittelweibgen oder Lerchengeyer, welches vorstellet in Lebensgrösse, wie eseine Lerche frisst, rubet auf einem verziertem Postament'.

A similar example was sold in these Rooms on 3 June 1996, lot 441 and in our New York Rooms on 21 November 1980, lot 387. See also the example in the G. von Gerhardt Collection Catalogue, pl. 28, no. 105.

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