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Lot Essay
Models of elephants appear in Kändler’s work report in 1741, in Reinicke’s work report in November 1743 and in Reinicke’s 1747 report, but none of these entries is a clear match with the present model. The model number for the group (1165) suggests a date of 1749(1), but there are no preserved work reports for Kändler and his workshop of sculptors between 1749 and 1764. Although it is not certain who the author, or authors, of this group were, it has been suggested that it was probably modeled as a collaboration by Kändler and Reinicke(2). The scholar Abraham den Blaauwen noted that the elephant and rider group is first mentioned in 1752, when a group corresponding to the Sultan Riding an Elephant appeared in the Livre-Journal of the Parisian marchand-mercier Lazarre Duvaux. On 4 January 1752 he sold ‘un elephant de porcelain de Saxe portant une figure’ for 216 livres to the Duc de Bauvilliers(3). The scholar Tim Clarke suggested that the rhinoceros and Turkish rider group (an example of which is in the Aitken collection) and the Sultan Riding an Elephant group were ‘issued at the same time’(4), suggesting perhaps that they were sometimes sold together.
See Hermann Jedding, Meissener Porzellan des 18. Jahrhunderts in Hamburger Privatbesitz, June – September 1982 Exhibition Catalogue, Hamburg, 1982, pp. 210-211, in which he illustrates a very similar group and suggests that the figure of the Sultan is reminiscent of the prints in Ferriol and Le Hay’s Receuil de Cent Estampes Représentant Différentes Nation du Levant, published in Paris in 1714 (and subsequently in Nuremberg in 1719). Rainer Rückert illustrates two similar Sultan Riding an Elephant groups from the Residenz in Ansbach (inv. no. P263 and inv. no. P262) in his Meissener Porzellan, Bayerischen Nationalmuseum, Exhibition Catalogue, Munich, 1966, pl. 263, nos. 1060 and 1061.
1. Rainer Rückert, ibid., 1966, p. 191, no. 1060.
2. Suggested by Rainer Rückert, ibid., 1966, p. 191, no. 1060.
3. Abraham den Blaauwen, ‘Meissen en het Journal van Lazare Duvaux’ in Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 9, 1961, p. 25.
4. T. Clarke, ‘The rhinoceros in European ceramics’ in Keramik-Freunde der Schweiz, no. 89, November 1976, p. 11.
See Hermann Jedding, Meissener Porzellan des 18. Jahrhunderts in Hamburger Privatbesitz, June – September 1982 Exhibition Catalogue, Hamburg, 1982, pp. 210-211, in which he illustrates a very similar group and suggests that the figure of the Sultan is reminiscent of the prints in Ferriol and Le Hay’s Receuil de Cent Estampes Représentant Différentes Nation du Levant, published in Paris in 1714 (and subsequently in Nuremberg in 1719). Rainer Rückert illustrates two similar Sultan Riding an Elephant groups from the Residenz in Ansbach (inv. no. P263 and inv. no. P262) in his Meissener Porzellan, Bayerischen Nationalmuseum, Exhibition Catalogue, Munich, 1966, pl. 263, nos. 1060 and 1061.
1. Rainer Rückert, ibid., 1966, p. 191, no. 1060.
2. Suggested by Rainer Rückert, ibid., 1966, p. 191, no. 1060.
3. Abraham den Blaauwen, ‘Meissen en het Journal van Lazare Duvaux’ in Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 9, 1961, p. 25.
4. T. Clarke, ‘The rhinoceros in European ceramics’ in Keramik-Freunde der Schweiz, no. 89, November 1976, p. 11.