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Lot Essay
This group, traditionally called La Toilette der Prinzessin, was derived from Jacque Philippe Le Bas's engraving of Chardin's La Toilette du Matin, now in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. Le Bas engraved the painting in 1741, the same year it was exhibited to great acclaim at the Paris Salon, and in 1749 it was bought by the Queen Luisa Ulrica of Sweden (Frederick the Great's sister). As the Hans Syz catalogue points out, this group could possibly be the one described in the 1765 Meissen Preiss-Courante as 'Groupe die Toilette von 2 Figuren'. The group has also been called La Toilette der Prinzessin, perhaps in reference to the ownership of Chardin's painting, or much more probably in reference to the coquettish way in which the girl admires herself in the mirror in both the painting and the engraving. For a similar example in the Ansbach Residenz, see Rainer Rückert, Meissener Porzellan (Munich, 1966), no. 1022 and for an example in the Hans Syz Collection, see Hans Syz, J.Jefferson Miller and Rainer Rückert, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection (Washington, 1979), no. 293. Another example is in the Floridiana Museum, Naples and also see the similar example sold by Christie's Geneva on 9 November 1987, lot 85 and another by Christie's London (King Street) on 25 February 1991, lot 96.