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Lot Essay
This group captures a real event, when the Court Jesters Hofnarr Joseph Fröhlich and Johann Christoph Kirsch dressed up for the immense costumed market festival held at the Dresden court on 26th June 1741. Fröhlich was satirising charlatan 'Quack Doctors', offering quack medicines for sale, and his assistant Kirsch was dressed as Harlequin ('der kleine und lustige Harlekin') from the Commedia dell'Arte. The two of them 'were selling medicines by the package to the merriment of the onlookers'.1
The model is mentioned in Kändler's Taxa as '1. Zahn-Arzt mit einer großen Peruque oder Marckt-Schreyer, seine Medicamente ausbiethend, hat neben sich einen Tisch stehen, darauff Medicamente liegen, u. einen Affen, welcher Arzeney hält, wie auch ein Arlequin in lustiger Positur, in seinem Huthe Kräuter habend, 11 Thlr' (one dentist with a large wig or market crier, offering his medicines, next to him a table on which are medicines and a monkey holding drugs, as well a harlequin in a funny posture, holding herbs in his hat, 11 Thaler),2 and the group is mentioned again in September 1741 as 'Einen Marktschreier, wie er auf einen Theatro, seine Artztney, Paquets weiße feil biethet und verkaufft' (a market crier, as in theatre, offering and selling drugs and white packets).3
There appear to be very few recorded models of the group, and some also have the addition of a monkey. The examples in the Pauls-Eisenbeiss and Untermyer Collections both have monkeys.4 Another example without the monkey is illustrated by Rainer Rückert, Der Hofnarr Joseph Fröhlich 1694-1757. Taschenspieler und Spassmacher am Hofe Augusts des Starken, Offenbach, 1998, p. 51, pl. 19.
1. See Rainer Rückert, ibid., 1998, p. 49, and Erika Pauls-Eisenbeiss, German Porcelain of the 18th Century, London, 1972, Vol. I, pp. 290-291. Also see Otto Walcha, 'Fröhlich und Schmiedel im Meissner Porzellan', Keramos, Vol. 32, April 1966, pp. 35-40, fig. 6 for a similar group and a discussion.
2. See Ingelore Menzhausen, In Porzellan verzaubert, Die Figuren Johann Joachim Kändlers in Meissen aus der Sammlung Pauls-Eisenbeiss Basel, Basel, 1993, p. 145.
3. See Rainer Rückert, ibid., 1998, p. 49.
4. For the Pauls-Eisenbeiss example, see Ingelore Menzhausen, ibid., pp. 144-145 and Erika Pauls-Eisenbeiss, ibid., Vol. I, pp. 290-291, and for the Untermyer example see Yvonne Hackenbroch, Meissen and other Continental Porcelain, Faience and Enamel in the Irwin Untermyer Collection, 1956, fig. 77, pl. 47.
The model is mentioned in Kändler's Taxa as '1. Zahn-Arzt mit einer großen Peruque oder Marckt-Schreyer, seine Medicamente ausbiethend, hat neben sich einen Tisch stehen, darauff Medicamente liegen, u. einen Affen, welcher Arzeney hält, wie auch ein Arlequin in lustiger Positur, in seinem Huthe Kräuter habend, 11 Thlr' (one dentist with a large wig or market crier, offering his medicines, next to him a table on which are medicines and a monkey holding drugs, as well a harlequin in a funny posture, holding herbs in his hat, 11 Thaler),
There appear to be very few recorded models of the group, and some also have the addition of a monkey. The examples in the Pauls-Eisenbeiss and Untermyer Collections both have monkeys.
1. See Rainer Rückert, ibid., 1998, p. 49, and Erika Pauls-Eisenbeiss, German Porcelain of the 18th Century, London, 1972, Vol. I, pp. 290-291. Also see Otto Walcha, 'Fröhlich und Schmiedel im Meissner Porzellan', Keramos, Vol. 32, April 1966, pp. 35-40, fig. 6 for a similar group and a discussion.
2. See Ingelore Menzhausen, In Porzellan verzaubert, Die Figuren Johann Joachim Kändlers in Meissen aus der Sammlung Pauls-Eisenbeiss Basel, Basel, 1993, p. 145.
3. See Rainer Rückert, ibid., 1998, p. 49.
4. For the Pauls-Eisenbeiss example, see Ingelore Menzhausen, ibid., pp. 144-145 and Erika Pauls-Eisenbeiss, ibid., Vol. I, pp. 290-291, and for the Untermyer example see Yvonne Hackenbroch, Meissen and other Continental Porcelain, Faience and Enamel in the Irwin Untermyer Collection, 1956, fig. 77, pl. 47.