PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF EDWARD AND KIYI PFLUEGER (LOTS 448 - 511) Formed over the course of forty years by the discerning eyes of Edward M. and Kathleen (Kiyi) Powers Pflueger, The Pflueger Collection totals over 700 pieces of the finest German and French porcelain and faience of the late 17th - 18th century. Edward started collecting European ceramics as a young man in 1930's Germany. After immigrating to the United States to establish an American base for the chemical firm of Bayer A.G., he continued his determined search for the best. In 1943, he married Kiyi, one of five daughters from a socially prominent New Jersey family, the ancestors of which had been early settlers of Manhattan, Rhode Island and Martha's Vineyard. Inspired by the porcelain collection formed by Otto and Magdalena Blohm of Hamburg, they together assembled one of the most important collections of European ceramics in America, displayed in their homes amongst fine paintings, sculpture, furniture and other decorative arts of the same periods. Upon the death of Edward in 1997, the destiny of the Collection became known - it was bequeathed to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston but was not to leave home until the death of its co-collector, Kiyi. With her passing earlier this year, the core of the collection has now moved on to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. After renovations at the museum are complete, it will finally be accessible to the public. On offer today are those ceramics, furniture and decorative arts retained privately by Kiyi after Edward's death, pieces displayed since the early 1960's in the Pflueger apartment on Park Avenue and at their farm in upstate New York, Kiyiwana, at which they raised purebred Highland cattle. The ceramics collection is renowned for its eight large white porcelain animals made at Meissen circa 1732 for Augustus the Strong's Japanese Palace. The 'grotesque' ewer, the Umtierkrug, the two araras, and the peacock were displayed in niches around the perimeter of the Dining Room in New York; the heron and the pair of vultures in the Porcelain Room. These two rooms flanked the central Salon in which the comprehensive collection of Commedia Dell'Arte figures from non-Meissen German porcelain factories - the series from Höchst, Frankenthal, Fulda, Fürstenburg, and Kloster-Veilsdorf - each arranged on gilt wall brackets above 18th century pier and console tables on which stood Strasbourg bird tureens and Chantilly white porcelain chinoiserie figures, these arrangements flanking the archways leading to the two smaller reception rooms. Although greatly reduced in volume, the ceramics from the Pflueger Collection in the present sale are representative of the greater whole to which they once belonged. The 18th century Meissen beasts may now be in Boston awaiting completion of renovations to the museum's decorative arts galleries; but early 20th century examples of other models made for the same project, a tiger and a lynx made in the early 20th century, are included in this auction (lots 510 and 511). The two pairs of Lille faience figures of chinamen (lots 482 and 483) that welcomed visitors to the Pflueger home from their vantage in the front hall are included, as is a Capodimonte figure group of a fishmonger and companion, representative of the selection of similar figures acquired by the museum, and a Doccia portrait plaque beautifully colored and in low relief on a gold ground representing Emperess Maria Theresa and her consort. Rounding out the sale is a substantial collection of German fayence, primarily tankards and chargers, that for years graced the shelves and walls of Kiyiwana, as well as those of the library and bedrooms of the New York apartment. And so ends an era. During the second half of the 20th century, the Pfluegers were known worldwide as discerning collectors of the best in European ceramics furniture and works of art. What has not gone to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston or been retained by members of the family is now being sold at auction, enabling current collectors to live with these wonderful works of art. PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF EDWARD AND KIYI PFLUEGER (LOTS 448 - 511)

AN EMPIRE ORMOLU, PATINATED BRONZE AND GREEN GRANITE MANTLE CLOCK

CIRCA 1810, THE MOVEMENT SIGNED AND NUMBERED 'NO. 547 LEROY'

Details

AN EMPIRE ORMOLU, PATINATED BRONZE AND GREEN GRANITE MANTLE CLOCK
CIRCA 1810, THE MOVEMENT SIGNED AND NUMBERED 'NO. 547 LEROY'
The circular dial with Roman chapter ring and matted center with subsidiary rings for date and day-of-week, with blued steel Breguet style hands, the movement accessed below the bust and with twin barrels , silk suspended pendulum and strike on bell, within a square base with stepped foliate lips surmounted by a detachable bust of a Greek lady with necklace with medallion of man and to the sides with chimerae, the movement signed 'No. 547 LEROY Hger.... AU PALAIS ROYAL Nos. 13 ET 14 A PARIS', the central part of the inscription effaced, the sides of the plinth previously with further mounts, previously probably with further element between the bust and the leaf-cast band to top of plinth
21 in. (53 cm.) high

Lot Essay

Basile-Charles Le Roy (1765 - 1828), maître in 1788, was the Horloger de S.A.I. et R. Madame Mère de l'Empereur in 1805, Horloger du Roi de Westphalie about 1810, and Horloger du Roi under the Restauration. He used cases by F. Rémond, C.G. Galle and J.A. Reiche.

A clock with identical base but in red porphyry rather than the green granite used on for this plinth, and with identical dial is illustrated in P. Kjellberg, Encyclopédie de La Pendule Française, Paris, 1997, p. 414, fig. C. That clock is surmounted by an Empire bronze bust of 'Elisa', Princess Elisa Baciocchi, sister of Napoleon I and grand duchess of Tuscany, and was a present by her to Empress Marie-Louise on her marriage to Napoléon I in 1810. The bust is inscribed Dumont sculpt 1810 while the movement is also signed by Basile-Charles Le Roy. Of particular interest is that the plinth of the offered lot shows signs of having been mounted to the sides while the plinth of the 'Elise' clock has Imperial ormolu coat-of-arms to the sides that appear to be of the size that fit the filled-in holes on the offered lot.

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