A MEISSEN GROUP OF THE INDISCREET HARLEQUIN

Bawdy humour was used by the commedia actors to punctuate their performance and this required a mastery of comedic timing. In this group Kändler captured a moment at the height of the comic action when Harlequin peeps up the skirt of the distracted Columbine. Meredith Chilton suggests that the group could have been derived from a blend of two separate print sources (illustrated here).1 The couple's pose could be derived from one of Petrus Schenck's engravings of Columbine seated on Harlequin's lap, taken from a series of twelve engravings, 'Les Amours de Columbine', which show Columbine 'paired in amorous positions with almost every male member of the troupe'.2 Harlequin's pose could be based on Gregorio Lambranzi's engraving from 'The New and Eccentric School of Theatrical Dancing', where Harlequin is shown 'concealed' on the ground and reaching up 'in order to steal from an unsuspecting blind beggar'.3

See also Erika Pauls Eisenbeiss, German Porcelain of the 18th Century, London, 1972, pp. 268-269 for an illustration of the model. A similar group was sold in these Rooms on 18 November 2008, lot 121.

1. See Meredith Chilton, Harlequin Unmasked, The Commedia dell'Arte and Porcelain Sculpture, Singapore, 2001, p. 138, fig. 225 and pp. 304-305, where the example of this model in the George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, Toronto, is also illustrated (no. 93).
2. Meredith Chilton, ibid., 2001, pp. 137-8.
3. Meredith Chilton, ibid., 2001, p. 138.