CIRCA 1808, ONE SIGNED RUHL FEC., THE OTHER RUHL, VARIOUS INCISED MARKS, BLUE F MARKS TO BASES

R.G. Vater Collection paper collection label applied to the underside of the Queen.

These two busts represent the King and Queen of the Kingdom of Westphalia, Jérôme Napoléon I (1784-1860) and his wife Princess Katharina Friederike of Württemberg (1783-1835).

These busts were modelled by Johann Christian Ruhl (1764-1842), the son of a cabinet clerk who studied sculpture under the guidance of Johann August Nahl the Younger (1752-1825). At the start of the 19th century he began working with the established modeller Karl Heinrich Schwarzkopf at the Fürstenberg porcelain factory. Jérôme was so impressed with his work that he appointed him as Court Sculptor in 1808, almost certainly the year that these busts were made.

The Kingdom of Westphalia was a short-lived realm, existing from only 1807-1813. Jérôme Napoléon was the youngest brother of Napoléon I, and the Kingdom was created for him by his older brother in 1807 by merging Prussian and Hannoverian territories between the Weser and the Elbe rivers. The new Kingdom became a vassel state for the First French Empire, and was intended to be a model state for the Napoleonic Empire. In 1807, a constitution was signed which granted equal rights to all male citizens and saw that serfdom was abolished.

Once installed in Westphalia, Jérôme and Katharina set about furnishing their palaces with furniture and works of art in the French Empire taste from leading manufacturers. Biscuit porcelain busts such as the present examples were highly fashionable at the start of the 19th century, and several different models of Jérôme's older brother Napoleon I were made at the Sèvres factory. In 1813, after Jérôme and his army tried and failed to defend their capital of Kassel from invading Prussian and Russian troops, the Kingdom of Westphalia was dissolved. During the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15, most of the Kingdom was absorbed into Prussia and a new Province of Westphalia was declared instead, with Münster named as the capital.

Further examples of these models are in the Museum Schloss Fürstenberg (museum nos. 1243 and 1352). A bust of Napoléon I, dated 1808, mounted on a plinth and gilt in the same manner with eagles and garlands is illustrated by Christian Scherer, das Fürstenberger Porzellan, Berlin, 1909, p. 190, pl. 153. A slightly different pair of busts of the King and Queen of Westphalia were sold by Christie's, London on 24 February 2003, lot 125.