Live Auction 1126Centuries of Style
A MEISSEN COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE FIGURE OF MEZZETIN FROM THE DUKE OF WEISSENFELS SERIES
Lot 46

A MEISSEN COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE FIGURE OF MEZZETIN FROM THE DUKE OF WEISSENFELS SERIES

CIRCA 1744, FAINT BLUE CROSSED SWORDS MARK

Closed4 June 2013

Price Realised

GBP 3,000

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A MEISSEN COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE FIGURE OF MEZZETIN FROM THE DUKE OF WEISSENFELS SERIES
CIRCA 1744, FAINT BLUE CROSSED SWORDS MARK
Modelled by P. Reinicke and probably J.J. Kändler, standing with his right arm extended and his left arm on his hip in a theatrical pose before a tree-stump, wearing a black snood, a yellow-lined lilac drape, a pink jacket with a white ruff and cuffs, black breeches and yellow shoes, on a mound base applied with a flower and foliage (right arm cracked across shoulder and restored, right hand restored, right index finger chipped, tip of right foot restored, slight chipping to flower and foliage)
5 1/8 in. (13 cm.) high

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 2 December 2003, lot 41.

Specialist note

Mezzetin is recorded in Reinicke's work notes for August 1744: '1 detto Mezetin, v. gleicher Grösse, in Thon bosirt' (1 ditto Mezetin, of the same size, modelled in clay), see Meredith Chilton, Harlequin Unmasked, The Commedia dell'Arte and Porcelain Sculpture, Singapore, 2001, p. 312, no. 113 for the reference and a similar example, and p. 145, ill. 235 for the related engraving.

The model was inspired by the engraving 'Habit de Mezzetin', by François Joullain from Luigi Riccoboni's Histoire du Théâtre Italien, Paris, 1728. According to Meredith Chilton, ibid., Singapore, 2001, pp. 88-90 and p. 97, Mezzetin belongs among the 'zanni', the servant characters of the Comedy; he was a gifted musician but like so many of the characters unscrupulous and 'ready to gamble and stir up trouble'.