GERMAN, POSSIBLY JOHANNES LEUCKER, 17TH CENTURY

The present lot was clearly part of larger composition, possibly with Diana riding astride a stag or on a chariot, as these figures were central features of the splendid mechanical creations and drinking cups so beloved at royal and aristocratic dinner tables and Kunstkammers in the 17th century. There are two similar figures of Diana, both recently featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Making Marvels exhibition, one from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s permanent collection and the other from the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven (17.190.746 and 19.2a-b). This lot also closely resembles the figures on a ewer and basin in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (KK4128-4129.) The sinuous maidens supporting the mollusk shells don nearly identical headdresses.