THE PORCELAIN CIRCA 1750, BLUE CROSSED SWORDS MARKS, THE MODEL ATTRIBUTED TO J.J. KÄNDLER, THE MOUNTS OF LATER DATE

Although no mention of these models appears in the work reports of Kändler or his sculptor colleagues, the appearance of the groups in the October 1753 inventory of Count von Brühl’s Konditorei⁽¹⁾ confirms that they must have been modeled before that date. Vanessa Sigalas notes that in spite of the brevity of the inventory description, which only describes them as: Pferde mit 1 Mohr [Horse with 1 moor], it must refer to these models. In addition, a group of this type appears in a 1753 painting by Aert Schouman, confirming a terminus ante quem for the production of the group⁽²⁾. It has been suggested that the group is derived from the ‘Marly Horses’, the marble equestrian groups by Guillaume Coustou which were completed for the Château de Marly in 1743-1745⁽³⁾. For another example of the model at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, also on an ormolu base, see object no. 2004.361.1.

1. See the transcription of this inventory published by Ulrich Pietsch et al., Schwanen service, Dresdener Schloss May to August 2000 Exhibition Catalogue, Leipzig, 2000, p. 233, under Cap 16, An untermengten Figuren.
2. Sigalas, ‘Peoples and Animals of Foreign Lands’ in Alfredo Reyes and Claudia Bodinek (eds)., Magnificence of Rococo, Wawel Castle, Cracow, May-September 2024 Exhibition Catalogue, Stuttgart, 2024, pp. 254-255, no. 76, where the groups are illustrated alongside the 1753 painting.
3. Noted by Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, introductory essay to the Sotheby’s, London, May 2013 Baillie Collection sale ‘A Context for the Meissen Porcelain Animals and Birds in the Sir Gawaine and Lady Baillie Collection’, note 19.