Live Auction 10398Centuries of Style: Silver, European Ceramics, Portrait Miniatures and Gold Boxes
A MEISSEN FIGURE OF HARLEQUIN TEASING A PUG
Lot 45

A MEISSEN FIGURE OF HARLEQUIN TEASING A PUG

CIRCA 1740

Closed2 December 2015

Price Realised

GBP 80,500

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A MEISSEN FIGURE OF HARLEQUIN TEASING A PUG
CIRCA 1740
Modelled by J.J. Kändler holding a pug under his left arm and winding its tail, with sheet music inscribed Da Capo draped across his left arm, leaning on a tree-stump, the rocky base applied with leaves (restoration and small chip to brim of hat, restoration to pug's front right leg and tail, small chip to bow, minor rubbing to gilding)

6 ½ in. (16.5 cm.) high

Specialist note

Meredith Chilton discusses ten large figures of Harlequins modelled by Kändler between 1738 and 1741, including the present model which may perhaps be paired with a Harlequin playing a monkey 'hurdy-gurdy', see Meredith Chilton, Harlequin Unmasked, the Commedia dell'Arte and Porcelain Sculpture, Singapore, 2001, p. 298, Cat. No. 79. This model is recorded in Kändler's Taxa of 1740 '1. theatralisches Figurgen, welches einen Hund statt einer Leyer unterm Arme hält und gleichsam leyert'. For a Harlequin with a similarly coloured jacket see Ulrich Pietsch, Meissener Porzellanplastick von Gottlieb Kirchner und Johann Joachim Kaendler, Dresden, 2006, pp. 61-62, Cat. No. 82.