CIRCA 1750, BLUE CROSSED SWORDS MARK AT BACK OF BASE

This series was loosely based on etchings after the drawings of Jean Baptiste Le Prince, a student of Boucher, who recorded Russian life in the 18th century. At great personal risk Le Prince travelled to Russia and made a series of drawings which he later etched. These etchings formed the basis of the Cris de St. Petersburg series. Examples of this model are illustrated by Len and Yvonne Adams, Meissen Portrait Figures, London, 1987, p. 138, and by Melitta Kunze-Köllensperger, Meissen, Collection Franz E. Burda, Augsburg, 1997, p. 140, no. 62, where the author mentions that this figure is often interpreted as a vodka seller. Another example was sold in these Rooms on 4 June 2013, lot 51.