A MEISSEN COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE FIGURE OF DOTTORE BOLOARDO FROM THE DUKE OF WEISSENFELS SERIES
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A MEISSEN COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE FIGURE OF DOTTORE BOLOARDO FROM THE DUKE OF WEISSENFELS SERIES

CIRCA 1744, BLUE CROSSED SWORDS MARK

Details
A MEISSEN COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE FIGURE OF DOTTORE BOLOARDO FROM THE DUKE OF WEISSENFELS SERIES
CIRCA 1744, BLUE CROSSED SWORDS MARK
Modelled by J.J. Kändler and P. Reinicke, standing with his left arm raised and right arm on his hip with his right foot forward in a theatrical pose, with a long curling moustache, wearing a black hat, a gilt-edged long cloak, a turquoise jacket with gilt buttons and fringes, pink breeches, black stockings and yellow shoes, on a mound base applied with flowers and foliage (his left arm and hand restored, restoration to hat, his left side of cloak, hem of cloak and edge of base at back, minor restoration to foliage and two slight flakes to turquoise enamel)
5½ in. (14 cm.) high
Provenance
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 2 December 2003, lot 43.
Literature
Yvonne Adams, Meissen Figures 1730-1755, The Kaendler Period, Atglen, 2001, p. 101, ill. 271.
Birte Abraham, Commedia dell'Arte, The Patricia & Rodes Hart Collection of European Porcelain and Faience, Amsterdam, 2010, pp. 66-67.
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

This model is mentioned in Kändler's work notes for April 1744 as '1 aur Italienischen Comödie gehörige Figur, Doctor genannt...welche ebenfalls für den Herzog von Weissenfels bestellet sind' (1 figure belonging to the Italian Comedy, called Doctor... which is also ordered for the Duke of Weissenfels), see Meredith Chilton, Harlequin Unmasked, Commedia dell'Arte and Porcelain Sculpture, Singapore, 2001, p. 310, no. 106 for the reference and a similar example.

Kändler's model of Dottore Boloardo is loosely based on the engraving 'Habit de Docteur Ancien' by François Joullain from Luigi Riccoboni's Histoire du Théâtre Italien, Paris, 1728.

Dottore Boloardo was a graduate of the University of Bologna and could be depicted as a man of letters, a philosopher, a lawyer, physician or alchemist. His role was central to the Commedia dell'Arte; as a self-centred and long-winded character who thought he knew everything yet did not understand anything. He was given to misquoting and contradicting himself and as a result becomes the dupe of the troupe.

For a similar example in the Pauls-Eisenbeiss Collectin in the Historisches Museum, Basel, see Dr. Erika Pauls-Eisenbeiss, German Porcelain of the 18th Century, London, 1972, Vol. 1, p. 329, no. 8.

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