CIRCA 1710-1715, PROBABLY MODELED BY PAUL HEERMANN AFTER AN IVORY BY FRANCIS VAN BOSSUIT

The present model was perhaps one of the most popular of the sculptural works produced by Böttger in the early years of the factory. The inventory of 1711 records no less than 75 as unfired, 24 in the kiln and a further 12 in the pottery room or Töpferstube. Other extant examples can be found in collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin; Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen; the Porzellansammlung, Dresden; and the Schlossmuseum, Gotha. See Malcolm Baker, "Francis van Bossuit, Böttger Stoneware and the 'Judith' Reliefs," Festchrift Schädler, 1998 for a detailed discussion of these casts and their relationship to a carved ivory relief of the same subject identified by Alfred Schädler as by the Dutch sculptor Francis von Bossuit now in the collection of the Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. This ivory was likely used by Böttger as the prototype for reliefs in his newly developed red stoneware. The Böttger examples are also related to a group of five ivory reliefs of the same subject, two of which are signed PH. These were traditionally ascribed to the hand of Peter Hencke of Mainz. However, scholarship now points to Paul Heermann of Dresden as the more likely carver, a sculptor recorded as working for Böttger as of 1708 and the likely modeler of the red stoneware reliefs.