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The following five lots are the only known complete set of five groups from a 'War against the Turks'. These extremely rare groups depict the barbarism of war in a way that is completely unparalleled in any other European porcelain factory in the 18th Century. Perhaps the popularity for Turkish subjects in the second half of the 18th Century stemmed from a sense of relief that the dangers which the Turks had once posed, until earlier that Century, had subsided. Turkish subjects are found in paintings, drawings and engravings of the period and even in music, such as Mozart's 'Türkenmarsch'. But the exact origin of these groups is still something of an enigma, and even the scholar Siegfried Ducret was unable to offer a solution as to whom they were made for, or from what source they came. The few other examples which are known to exist are listed with the relevant lots.

A Zürich 'Turkish group'

CIRCA 1770, BLUE Z MARK, INCISED .IN.

細節

A Zürich 'Turkish group'
Circa 1770, blue Z mark, incised .iN.
Modelled with a soldier in a black tricorn hat, a silvered breast-plate over a green jacket with red cuffs, pale-yellow breeches and black boots, standing on a dead Turk's head with his foot and holding up a Turkish standard of white horse's tails in his right hand, his left hand lifting the veil of his prisoner, a Turkish lady standing next to him, finely dressed with silvered jewellery and brightly chequered and striped clothing, standing on a silvered shield with cannon balls, a gilt cannon and other implements of war at her feet, the dead Turk lying face downwards stripped to the waist, on an oval rockwork mound base (top of standard lacking, minute and small chipping, her left thumb restored, fine crack to lady's ankles and centre of base, wear to black enamel, gilding and silvering)
5¾ in. (14.6 cm.) high

來源

With The Antique Porcelain Co., London, according to a label attached to the underside.

出版

Siegfried Ducret, Die Zürcher Porzellanmanufaktur (Zürich, 1958), Vol. II, p. 35, pl. 53.

注意事項

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium

拍品專文

An almost identical group was formerly in a 'Collection Suisse' and sold by Fr. Muller, Amsterdam, on 12th May 1916, pl. LXI, and again from the Blohm Collection by Sotheby's London on 5th July 1960, lot 194, and again from the Alfred Schwarzenbach Collection by Sotheby's Zürich on 7th May 1974, lot 95. The same group is illustrated by Robert Schmidt, Early European Porcelain As Collected by Otto Blohm (Munich, 1953), pl. 90, no. 336. Another group in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is illustrated by W.B. Honey, European Ceramic Art (London, 1949), pl. 162d.