CIRCA 1742

Details

A MEISSEN GROUP OF THE INDISCREET HARLEQUIN
CIRCA 1742
Modelled by J.J. Kändler, with Columbine seated on Beltrame's lap in an amorous embrace, Harlequin at their feet peeping up Columbine's skirt, Beltrame in a black cap, turquoise waistcoat decorated with Sgraffito foliate fronds, black breeches and purple shoes, Columbine in a pink bodice gilt with flowers, a flowered yellow skirt and white and puce shoes, Harlequin in a jacket painted with playing cards and flowers and striped red and white trousers and black shoes, on a shaped mound base applied with flowers and foliage (areas of restoration and lacquering)
6 5/8 in. (17 cm.) high

Provenance

Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 29 November 1973, lot 173.
With Brian Haughton, London, from whom it was acquired on 19 October 2003.

Literature

Birte Abraham, Commedia dell'Arte, The Patricia & Rodes Hart Collection of European Porcelain and Faience, Amsterdam, 2010, pp. 42-43.

Special notice

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

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Lot Essay

Bawdy humour was used by the Commedia actors to punctuate their performance and this required a mastery of comedic timing. Like another group of Harlequin and Columbine in this sale (lot 4), the present group represents a moment, frozen in time, at the height of the comic action. Kändler has captured Harlequin peeking up the skirt of the distracted Columbine. Meredith Chilton suggests that the group could have been derived from a blend of two separate print sources (illustrated above).1 The couple's pose could be derived from one of Petrus Schenck's engravings of Columbine seated on Harlequin's lap, taken from a series of twelve engravings, 'Les Amours de Columbine', which show Columbine 'paired in amorous positions with almost every male member of the troupe'.2 Harlequin's pose could be based on Gregorio Lambranzi's engraving from 'The New and Eccentric School of Theatrical Dancing', where Harlequin is shown 'concealed' on the ground and reaching up 'in order to steal from an unsuspecting blind beggar'.3

See also Erika Pauls Eisenbeiss, German Porcelain of the 18th Century, London, 1972, pp. 268-269.

1. See Meredith Chilton, Harlequin Unmasked, The Commedia dell'Arte and Porcelain Sculpture, Singapore, 2001, p. 138, fig. 225 and pp. 304-305, where the example of this model in the George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, Toronto, is also illustrated (no. 93).
1. Meredith Chilton, ibid., 2001, pp. 137-8.
2. Meredith Chilton, ibid., 2001, p. 138.

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