CIRCA 1740-45

细节

A MEISSEN GROUP OF HARLEQUIN AND FAMILY
CIRCA 1740-45
Modelled by J.J. Kändler with Harlequin embracing his companion who holds a child in her left arm and a pair of pince-nez in her left hand, wearing a black bodice, white apron and flowered skirt, Harlequin wearing a plumed grey hat, a jacket painted with puce scale- pattern and playing cards on a turquiose ground and red shoes, the child with a green hat, black and yellow jacket with a red frill, on a shaped rocky base applied with coloured flowers and green leaves (pince-nez replaced, plumes and green bow on Harlequin's hat restored, her hat restored, chipping and restoration to her left and right sleeve and bow, restoration to his left toe and her right toe, minute chipping to extremities, minor wear to gilding)
7¼ in. (18.5 cm.) high

来源

The Collection of Senator E.A. McGuire, Newton Park, Dublin, sale Sotheby's, London, 30 March 1954, lot 118 (purchased by Willy Lissauer, Berlin).
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 2 December 2003, lot 36.

出版

Birte Abraham, Commedia dell'Arte, The Patricia & Rodes Hart Collection of European Porcelain and Faience, Amsterdam, 2010, pp. 46-47.

注意事项

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 20% on the buyer's premium.

荣誉呈献

Dominic Simpson

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拍品专文

This model does not appear in Kändler's work book or Taxa but it is mentioned in the overtime records of the repairer Anton Friedrich Kohler from April and May 1738: '2 stck. Arlequine mit 1 Weibgen welches ein Kind auf den Armen' (2 figures of Harlequin with one woman who is carrying a child in her arms).1 Another version of the group was made without the child. For examples of both versions, in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremburg, see Rainer Rückert, Meissener Porzellan 1710-1810, Munich, 1966, no. 861 (with child) and 862 (without child). Another, similar to the present lot, is in the Porzellansammlung in Dresden and is illustrated by Ingelore Menzhausen, Early Meissen Porcelain in Dresden, London, 1990, no. 147.

The composition of this group, which is filled with movement and yet captures a sense of the tender interaction between the figures, is extremely successful. Not only were both versions produced again at Meissen in the 1930s,2 but they were also copied in the 18th century at other porcelain manufactories including Mennecy, Vienna and Derby.

For a full list of comparable examples, and the example in The Gardiner Collection, see Meredith Chilton, Harlequin Unmasked, The Commedia dell'Arte and Porcelain Sculpture, Singapore, 2001, pp. 295-296, no.76.

1. See Ingelore Menzhausen, In Porzellan verzaubert, Die Figuren Johann Joachim Kändlers in Meissen aus der Sammlung Pauls-Eisenbeiss Basel, Basel, 1993, p. 133.
2. See Staatlich Porzellan-Manufaktur Meissen, Italienische Komödie, pl. VIII.