1710-1720, PROBABLY GILT IN AUGSBURG

Details

A pair of Böttger small pagoda figures
1710-1720, PROBABLY GILT IN AUGSBURG
Modelled as hollow cross-legged seated Orientals, their left hand upon their high left knee, their right hand holding their right leg, their stretched head with patches of hair behind the ears, their sneering opened mouths with tiny teeth, their ears pierced with tiny openings, their gilt flowing garment displaying their nude shoulders, breast and belly (both with chipped toes to their frontal foot and some rubbing to the gilt, one with a chip circa 0.6 cm. wide to the frontal lower rim and two chips circa 0.4 and 0.8 cm. wide to the reverse lower rim)
Circa 9.7 cm. high (2)

Exhibited

On loan to the Huelsmann Museum, Bielefeld, till January 2007.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

See R. Rückert, Meissener Porzellan, München, 1966, p. 163 no. 836 and ill. Tafel 199 for similar pagoda figures in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, München, Inv. Nr. 38/19.
The same model appears in Böttger red stoneware. The Chinese examples remain untraced to the present day. In early manufactory reports they were called Sitzende Indianische Pagoden.
These hollow figures might have been used as incense burners seen the tiny openings to the ears and the opened mouth.

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