CIRCA 1754-55, HARLEQUIN INCISED ..F. ·N· F:, HARLEQUINE INCISED .F. N·F.

Details

A PAIR OF FÜRSTENBERG FIGURES OF HARLEQUIN AND HARLEQUINE DANCING
CIRCA 1754-55, HARLEQUIN INCISED ..f. ·N· F:, HARLEQUINE INCISED .f. N·F.
Modelled by Simon Feilner, Harlequin striding forward with his right hand raised and turning to the right, his left hand resting on a slap-stick tucked into his belt, wearing a white feathered hat, white ruff, chequered jacket and pantaloons with a scalloped puce scale border with pendant flowers, Harlequine turned to the left with her right hand on her hip, her left hand on a slap-stick tucked under a narrow belt, wearing a white feathered tricorn hat tilted on her head, white ruff and a chequered jacket and skirt, each before tree-stumps on incised mound bases (Harlequin's right fingers replacements, tip of slap-stick probably a replacement and handle lacking, small chip to left sleeve and smaller restored chip to other, chip to underside edge of base, Harlequine's head restuck and restored around ruff, left hand a replacement, restoration to both ends of slap-stick, small part of belt and brim of hat, firing cracks to base, one with small associated loss, slight chipping to underside edge)
Harlequin 7 7/8 in. (20 cm.) high; Harlequine 7 5/8 in. (19.3 cm.) high (2)

Provenance

Otto and Magdalena Blohm Collection, sale Sotheby's London, 25th April 1961, lot 419 (£2,600 to Newman)
Ernesto Blohm Collection, nos. 100 a and b (paper labels attached to undersides).

Special notice

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

Lot Essay

Each underside inscribed twice with 27252 2 and a triangle in black ink. Harlequin still with Newman & Newman, London, label attached to base.

The similar pair of figures in the Blohm Collection were sold in their sale, Sotheby's London, 5th July 1960, lot 176 c and d, and are now in the Pflueger Collection; see Hugo Morley-Fletcher, 'Early European Porcelain & Faience as collected by Kiyi and Edward Pflueger' Catalogue (London, 1993), pp. 130-131, and Siegfried Ducret, Fürstenberger Porzellan (Brunswick, 1965), Vol. I, fig. 32. The other similar figure of Harelquin from the Blohm Collection is now in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg (Inv.Nr.B5), and is illustrated in 'Weisses Gold aus Fürstenberg', Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Münster and Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Brunswick 1988-1989 Exhibition Catalogue (1988), p. 234, no. 156, where the known examples are listed. For another figure of Harlequine in the Anton Ulrich-Museum, see loc. cit (1988), pp. 234-236, where the other known examples are listed.

Left, Johann Jacob Wolrab's engraving of Harlequine, circa 1720

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