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A KLOSTER VEILSDORF FIGURE OF MEZZETIN DISGUISED AS A PAINTER FROM THE SMALL COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE SERIES

CIRCA 1765

Details

A KLOSTER VEILSDORF FIGURE OF MEZZETIN DISGUISED AS A PAINTER FROM THE SMALL COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE SERIES
CIRCA 1765
Modelled by Wenzel Neu, wearing a white ruff, a green-striped pale-green jacket, breeches and snood, with a similar striped cloak thrown over his left shoulder, his red shoes with white buckles, holding a large palette in his left hand, his right hand clutching two paint brushes, leaning against a tree-stump on a pale-brown circular mound base (majority of brushes lacking, minute wear to red enamel)
3 1/8 in. (7.9 cm.) high

Provenance

Otto and Magdalena Blohm Collection, sale Sotheby's London, 25th April 1961, lot 362, part (£440 to Chester)
Beatrice Blohm von Rumohr Collection.

Special notice

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

Lot Essay

Underside of base inscribed O.B.832. in black ink.

See Robert Schmidt, Early European Porcelain as Collected by Otto Blohm (Munich, 1953), col. pl. 95, no. 349 for a larger version of this figure, and Meredith Chilton, op. cit., p. 256, fig. 399 for another similar example illustrated with five other Commedia figures from the larger series. It is probable that Neu adaped plate VII from Johann B. Probst's series, using part of Mezzetin, who is shown painting and holding a palette while seated, and part of Scaramouche who is clutching paint-brushes in his hand. For an illustration of this print, see M. Chilton, ibid., p. 257, fig. 404.

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