A Meissen porcelain figure of the dancing Harlequin
From the series of commedia dell'arte figures produced for Duke Johann Adolf II of Saxony-Weissenfels. With finely painted features and mi-parti justacorps with a playing card pattern. Unglazed base, blue crossed swords mark on the reverse. The little finger restored. H 14.7 cm.
Model by Johann Joachim Kaendler and Peter Reinicke, April 1744, produced soon after.
This figure appears in Kaendler's workshop records for April 1744 with the entry "A Harlequin, also belonging to the Italian comedy, corrected, cut and ready to be modelled." (Pietsch, Leipzig 2002, p. 102). Duke Johann Adolf II of Saxony Weißenfels (1685 - 1745), referred to by Kaendler as "His Serene Highness the Duke of Weißenfels", commissioned a number of figures of this kind.
The Francophile prince decided early on to pursue a military career. His cousin King August II of Saxony appointed him to the Saxon-Polish service in 1711. After his death in 1733, he helped his successor, King August III, to secure the Polish kingship, which he succeeded in doing by defeating Stanislaus I Leszczynski in 1736. The groups of commedia dell'arte figures were ordered and executed in Meissen between the First and Second Silesian Wars, in which he played a major role. They represented a spectacular success for the sculptural achievement of the manufactory, for as three-dimensional figures they were only partly based on or inspired by engraved prototypes. Much of the work on the figures was therefore done by the sculptors themselves, such as Peter Reinicke and Johann Joachim Kaendler in this case.
Literature
Cf. Jansen (ed.), Commedia dell'Arte Fest der Komödianten. Keramische Kostbarkeiten aus den Museen der Welt, Stuttgart-Düsseldorf 2001, cat. no. 38, described there as "Hanswurst".