Lot 212: A MEISSEN GROUP OF ORIENTAL LOVERS CIRCA 1745

PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF MARIAN AND MICHAEL SABEE

height 4 3/8 in. (11cm)

modelled by Johann Joachim Kändler, possibly with Peter Reinicke and Friedrich Elias Meyer, the couple kissing, he with a lute and she holding a teabowl and saucer and with a parrot perched on her knee, before a tripod table set for coffee, on an oval base encrusted with colorful flowers and leaves, faint crossed swords mark in underglaze-blue. Small chips to flowers, restoration to her right hand and his left hand.

PROVENANCE

Sold, Sotheby's, London, November 28, 1967, lot 130;
Sold, Sotheby's, London, November 7, 1972, lot 36;
Sold, Sotheby's, London, December 4, 1973, lot 172;
Sold, Sotheby's, London, June 17, 1975, lot 64

NOTE

A group of this model is illustrated by Reiner Rückert, Mesissener Porzellan, pl. 231, no. 952, who cites Kändler's Taxa entry of November 1745: "1 Gruppgen, aus 2 Figuren bestehend, einen Indianer nebst Weibgen so nebeneinander sitzen and sich küssen, der Indianer aber spielt auf der Laute, und die Indianerin trinkt Coffée. [one group comprising two figures, an Indian next to a maiden, seated next to each other and kissing, the Indian playing the lute and the female Indian drinking coffee]."

Several versions of the group exist with slight variations in the objects held in the woman's hand, and with the parrot either absent or, more usually, perched on the leg of the table. An example of the latter type was sold at Sotheby's, London, November 21, 2000, lot 47.