Selected Meissen and Other Ceramics from the Collection of Henry H. Arnhold

Selected Meissen and Other Ceramics from the Collection of Henry H. Arnhold

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 320. A MEISSEN GROUP OF A FREEMASON COUPLE TAKING CHOCOLATE CIRCA 1745.

A MEISSEN GROUP OF A FREEMASON COUPLE TAKING CHOCOLATE CIRCA 1745

Auction Closed

October 24, 05:26 PM GMT

Estimate

6,000 - 8,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

A MEISSEN GROUP OF A FREEMASON COUPLE TAKING CHOCOLATE CIRCA 1745


modeled by Johann Joachim Kändler, seated on an upturned pedestal at a table, she, holding a beaker to her partner's mouth and reaching for a hot chocolate pot on the table and wearing a puce cloak and a dress painted with indianische Blumen, a pug resting in her lap, he, with his arm around her, wearing a white frock coat, a right-angle square around his neck and an apron, a trowel at the base of the table, all on a small mound base applied with flowers and leaves, crossed swords mark in underglaze-blue. 

Height: 5⅝ in.

14.2 cm

The Property of Mrs. Birgitta-Brooke, Sotheby's London, March 30, 1971, lot 266  

Sotheby's London, July 13, 1971, lot 203

Angela Gräfin von Wallwitz, Munich, March 2006

Wilhelm Siemen, 1995, pp. 1-53, fig. 30

von Wallwitz, 2006, pp. 120-25, cat. no. 21

Cassidy-Geiger, 2008, no. 53, p. 265, illus.

Kändler notes in his Taxa, or work records, on November 21st 1744, 'One group of freemasons, a freemason in his clothing with fur apron seated next to a lady of the Mopsorden who offers him chocolate from a table by her side, a dog on her lap, 16 Talers.'", Angela Gräfin von Wallwitz, Celebrating Kaendler, Meissen Porcelain Sculpture, Zum 300. Geburtstag Johann Joachim Kaendlers 1706-1775. Porzellanskulpturen aus Meissen, Taufkirchen, 2006, p. 122.


The constitution of the Order of the Pugs (Mopsorden) was designed in 1740 as a fraternal group for Roman Catholics who had been forbidden to join the Freemasons and practice their rites by Pope Clement XII 's 1738 bull, In Eminenti Apostolatus Specula. The para-Masonic secret society was patronized by the most illustrious persons of Germany and believed to have been founded in Bavaria by the elector of Cologne, Clemens August of Wittelsbach (1700-1761). It was the first masonic order that welcomed women as members on the condition that they were Catholic.