A MEISSEN PORCELAIN MONKEY TEAPOT (AFFENMUTTER ALS TEEKANNE)

This well-documented and beloved form depicts a protective mother with her young variously eating or howling from its mother's arms. Johann Joachim Kändler was the remarkably influential Modellmeister (head modeler) at Meissen from 1733 until his death in 1775. Kändler described his creation of this model in a work report from July 1735: "Changed and put into the right form a teapot in the shape of a monkey with one of her young on her back and holding one in her hands, out of which the tea flows, sitting on a small base to which she is attached by a lock and chain" (see U. Pietsch, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, London, 2011, p. 492, no. 595). The resulting poignant and delicate figure was reproduced in varying colors and with the round opening held by one young monkey depicted as various fruits, nuts, and vessels. For a similar example from the Engelhard Collection, see Christie's, New York, 18 March 2005, Lot 31.

Similar figures can be found in the Wark Collection at the Cummer Museum in Jacksonville FL (AG1967.10.12), the Irwin Untermyer Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (64.101.200), and the Hans C. Syz Collection in the Smithsonian Museum, Washington (1984.1140.15).