CIRCA 1745, BLUE CROSSED SWORDS MARK, IMPRESSED TWICE WITH 45

細節

A MEISSEN GROUP OF 'THE MOCKERY OF AGE' OR 'DER GENAARTE SCHWACHLING'
CIRCA 1745, BLUE CROSSED SWORDS MARK, IMPRESSED TWICE WITH 45
Modelled by J.J. Kändler, with a seated elderly man kissing a young lady with two comic Harlequin figures nearby, the old man wearing a night-cap and a gilt and black flowered puce frock-coat, holding a crutch, the lady seated beside him with her arm around him, a dog under her other arm, in a gilt flowered bodice and flowered yellow skirt, the Harlequins in differently coloured chequered jackets, one offering the old man celery in a bowl, the other prancing behind him, holding cock's feathers and with his tongue stuck out, on a shaped mound base applied with flowers and foliage (old man's right foot restuck, front Harlequin broken through right thigh and left knee and restuck, left arm and right hand restuck, restoration to his nose and right little finger, restoration to feathers in rear Harlequin's hands, small minor restored chip to her right shoe, slight chipping to flower and ribbons, slight wear to gilding, gilding of her skirt hem with area of re-touching)
7¼ in. (18.4 cm.) high

注意事項

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

拍品專文

This satirical group was first modelled in the early years of the 1740s, and is mentioned in Kändler's Taxa as '1 Group of 4 figures composed of an old man in his fur gown, holds a cane in his hand and has a cap with a feather on his head. He is sitting with a young woman, who he tries to caress. The woman has a little dog on her lap. Behind the old man stands a Harlequin, who puts a cock's feather on his hat. From the front comes another fellow, who presents him with celery. 18 Thalers'.

See Meredith Chilton, Harlequin Unmasked, The Commedia dell'Arte and Porcelain Sculpture (2001), p. 193 where she points out that a satirical scene of this type would be expected in a Commedia dell'Arte performance, but unusually, the figure of the old man is not one of the Comedy characters. Chilton suggests that Kändler could have loosely based the group on a scene from Molière's Le malade imaginaire engraved by Engelbrecht, or on another engraving by Engelbrecht entitled 'Academia' (published in Augsburg in 1725), which depicts a seated man wearing a similar cap (both engravings are illustrated on p. 193 as figs 312 and 313). For the example in the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art (with later 19th century or 20th century decoration), see Chilton, ibid, p. 301, no. 85, and p. 195 for a colour illustration.