A pair of Meissen porcelain figures of a lion and lioness, circa 1745-50

Property from the collection of comte Anne-Jules de Noailles (1900-1979), Thierry de Maigret, Paris, 5-6 December 2023, lot 56;

Acquired at the above sale.

Kändler modelled lion figures of this type for Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland in 1741. A further pair of these models was in the historic collection of the vicomtesse de Courval (1835-1902), sold, Sotheby’s, Paris, 25 March 2014, lot 72, illustrated in Sarah-Katharina Andres-Acevedo, Die autonomen figürlichen Plastiken Johann Joachim Kaendlers und seiner Werkstatt zwischen 1731 und 1748, Band II, Stuttgart, 2023, pp. 102-103, 105, cat. nos. 243-254. Andres-Acevedo cites Kändler’s Taxa entry for January 1741 which included: ‘Löwe, mittlelmäßiger Größe, liegend mit offenem Rachen vor Ihro Königl. Maj., 4 Thlr’, [Lion, medium size, lying with open jaw, for His Royal Majesty, 4 thalers], and an entry in his work report for February-March 1741: ‘Löwin halb liegend und halb sizend, Gegen den Löwen sehend, 3 Thlr’, [Lioness half lying and half sitting, facing the lion, 3 thalers].

A further pair of these models was in the collection of Laurance S. Rockefeller (1910-2004), New York, acquired from the Antique Porcelain Company, London in 1962, and later sold, in the sale of property from his estate at Sotheby’s, New York, 11-12 October 2005, lot 479. They subsequently entered the collection of Irene Aitken, New York, and were most recently sold at Christie’s, New York, 11 February 2026, lot 111. A single lioness, mounted in gilt-bronze was sold at Sotheby's, London, 3 July 2003, lot 78.

Comte Anne-Jules de Noailles (1900-1979)

The only son of the Mathieu Fernand de Noailles (1873–1942) and Anna Bibesco-Bassaraba (1876-1933), princesse de Brancovan. Anne-Jules de Noailles was raised in Parisian high society by a mother who held salons, bringing together the most famous intellectuals, writers and artists of the time. A great collector, Anne-Jules donated important pieces from his collection to the Louvre Museum, including fourteen pieces of 18th-century Meissen porcelain, and to the Musée national de la Céramique de Sèvres, he donated twenty pieces of 18th-century Vincennes and Sèvres porcelain.