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Lot Essay
The porcelain model for this equestrian group has been studied by K. Albiker in Die Meissner Porzellantiere, Berlin, 1959, pl.245 and 248. This group was rapidly taken up by the marchands-merciers, revealed most tellingly in the drawing for a clock which displays this same group elaborately mounted in rocaille ormolu and with a movement by Gudin, reproduced in P. Heuer and K. Maurice, European Pendulum Clocks, Westchester, 1988, p.11, fig.6.
Although dated slightly earlier by Albiker to 1765 in Die Meissner Porzellantiere, Berlin, 1935, nos. 228-231, tafel LIV, this date is clearly erroneous. English copies of the Meissen model were made at Longton Hall circa 1753 (Bernard Watney, Longton Hall Porcelain, figs. 63 a and c) and a note of the same year by Lazare Duvaux describes un cheval de porcelaine Saxe avec un figure a coste.
In composition, this group was almost certainly inspired by the pair of monumental marble groups, Chevaux Retenus par des Palefreniers, modelled by Guillaume Coustou 1739-1745 for the chteau at Marly and moved in 1794 to their present location in Paris at the intersection of the Champs Elysées with the Place de la Concorde.
A Louis XV clock incorporating this same group, recorded in the collection of A.A. Levesque in 1767, was sold from the Riahi Collection, Christie's New York, 2 November 2000, lot 49.
For other Meissen examples see Ernst Zimmermann, Meissner Porzellan, p.194, pl.59; Catalogue of the von Pannwitz Collection, nos.335 and 336; and Schönheit des 18. Jahrhunderts, the Zurich Exhibition Catalogue, 1955, p.52, fig.40.
Although dated slightly earlier by Albiker to 1765 in Die Meissner Porzellantiere, Berlin, 1935, nos. 228-231, tafel LIV, this date is clearly erroneous. English copies of the Meissen model were made at Longton Hall circa 1753 (Bernard Watney, Longton Hall Porcelain, figs. 63 a and c) and a note of the same year by Lazare Duvaux describes un cheval de porcelaine Saxe avec un figure a coste.
In composition, this group was almost certainly inspired by the pair of monumental marble groups, Chevaux Retenus par des Palefreniers, modelled by Guillaume Coustou 1739-1745 for the chteau at Marly and moved in 1794 to their present location in Paris at the intersection of the Champs Elysées with the Place de la Concorde.
A Louis XV clock incorporating this same group, recorded in the collection of A.A. Levesque in 1767, was sold from the Riahi Collection, Christie's New York, 2 November 2000, lot 49.
For other Meissen examples see Ernst Zimmermann, Meissner Porzellan, p.194, pl.59; Catalogue of the von Pannwitz Collection, nos.335 and 336; and Schönheit des 18. Jahrhunderts, the Zurich Exhibition Catalogue, 1955, p.52, fig.40.