A very rare Meissen group of a Chinese figure seated in an arbour circa 1725-30

Estimate

20,000 - 25,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

crossed swords mark in underglaze-blue to both,

modelled probably by Georg Fritzsche, the detachable, bearded figure wearing a turquoise robe reserved with iron-red phoenix device and holding a purple hat on his knee, seated in an elaborate pierced rockwork arbour heightened in enamels and applied with flowers and fruiting leafy branches

Provenance

Franz and Margarete Oppenheimer Collection;
Fritz Mannheimer Collection, Amsterdam;
Sold from the Mannheimer Collection by Fredrick Müller & Co., Amsterdam, 14th-21st October 1952, lot 369 - the figure only);
The Hon. Mrs. Nellie Ionides, Buxted Park, sold in these Rooms, 7th July 1964, lot 152 - the figure only (£900 to Newman & Newman);
Sold Galerie Koller, Zürich, 7-23 May 1981, lot 2978

Literature

Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Katakog der Sammlung Dr. Franz Oppenheimer, no.30, pl.4;
Michael Newman, Die deutschen Porzellan-Manufakturen, vol.1, col.pl.III;
Rainer Rückert, "Alchemistische Symbolzeichen als Meißener Masse-, Former, Bossirer-, und Drehermarken im vierten Jahrzehnt des 18.Jahrhunderts", in Keramos, 151/January 1996, pp.57-108, ill.17

Catalogue Note

See Rückert (Literature below), pp.94ff. for a discussion of the early chinoiserie figures at Meissen. The only other published example of this figure is in the Untermyer Collection, Metropolitan Museum, New York, which is seated in a similar, higher, arbour (published by Y.Hackenbroch, Meissen and Other Continental Porcelain, Faience and Enamel in the Irwin Untermyer Collection, pl.13, fig.23.

A variation of this arbour group with a different, slightly smaller seated Chinaman is known in four published examples: one, formerly in the Oppenheimer and Mannheimer collections, was sold in these Rooms from the Fribourg Collection, 25th June 1963, lot 6; another, formerly in the collections of Prince Liechtenstein, Robert von Hirsch and Mrs. Charles E. Dunlap, was sold in these Rooms, 25th June 1985, lot 233; another, formerly in the Oppenheimer and Mannheimer collections, was sold by Christie's London, 28th March 1977, lot 111; another is in the Pauls Collection, Basel, published by E.Pauls-Eisenbeiss, German Porcelain of the 18th Century, vol.I, p.74.