Two Kloster Veilsdorf porcelain Commedia dell'Arte figures of Harlequin and Scaramouche, circa 1765-70
Lot Closed
June 25, 12:04 PM GMT
Estimate
4,000 - 6,000 EUR
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Description
modelled by Wenzel Neu, Harlequin as a masked figure, his right hand holding a sealed letter and touching his cap, his left hand at his waist holding a straw hat; Scaramouche, in a black costume, playing a guitar, each standing on a circular mound base before a tree stump
(2)
Height of tallest 6 ⅜ in; 16 cm
Harlequin, Anonymous sale, Lempertz, Cologne, 10 May 2013, lot 92;
Acquired at the above sale.
Scaramouche, Anonymous sale, Metz, Heidelberg, 11 May 2013, lot 196;
Acquired at the above sale.
From the ‘Großen Theater Figuren’, [large theatrical figures] series by Wenzel Neu, largely inspired by plates 1 and 5 from the series of engravings "Arlechin, das lebendige Gemählde und lächrl. Cupido", by Johann Balthasar Peobst after a drawing by Johann Jacob Schübler, published in Augsburg in 1729 by the heirs of Jeremias Wolff. The series is discussed by Ralf-Jürgen Sattler, "Theater Figuren" von Closter Veilsdorf, in Reinhard Jansen (ed.), Commedia dell'Arte Fest der Komödianten, Stuttgart, 2001, pp. 86-96, where another example of Scaramouche playing a guitar in the Thüringer Museum, Eisenach, is illustrated (cat. no. 79). A further example of Scaramouche was in the Hermann Emden Collection, Hamburg, sold, Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus, Berlin, 3-7 November 1908, lot 924. Two further examples of Harlequin were in the collection of Otto and Magdalena Blohm, Hamburg and Caracas, published in Robert Schmidt, Early European Porcelain as Collected by Otto Blohm, Munich, 1953, cat. nos. 345-46.