A rare pair of Chinese Export painted clay nodding head figures late 18th/early 19th century

The present figures belong to a type which are also sometimes described as being modelled of  "plaster", and which are first recorded in a Western collection in 1777, when a group which subsequently entered the Danish Royal Collections was bought at auction by the Danish Asiatisk Kompagni. For a discussion of these figures see B. Dam-Mikkelsen and Torben Lundbaek, Ethnographic Objects in the Royal Danish Kunstkammer 1650-1800, pp. 173-179. Another similar figure is illustrated by Carl Crossman, The Decorative Arts of the China Trade, p. 316, color pl. 112. Crossman discusses it and other related figures now in the collection of the Peabody Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, some of which are dressed in silk robes, and notes on p. 448 that such figures are often referred to as 'Regency', erroneously implying English manufacture, a belief perhaps stemming from the group of, undoubtedly Chinese, figures which can be found in the Royal Pavilion, Brighton.

A pair of figures of this type, but holding vases, is illustrated by David S. Howard, A Tale of Three Cities, Canton, Shanghai and Hong Kong, p. 146, no. 188, who also notes that the largest known collection of such figures is in Sweden at Drottningholm Palace.

A pair of figures very similar to the present example was sold at Christie's, New York, January 24, 1997, lot 1.