A rare pair of Meissen porcelain chicken jugs
Naturalistically rendered chicken models as ewers, the open beaks forming the spouts, the tail feathers bent around to form the handles, and with additional curved feathers on the back to form the lids. Smoothed bases, the cockerel with embosser's no. 5. Restored chips to the beaks and combs, as well as the feather handle of one lid. H 14.5 and 14, L c. 20 / 21 cm.
Models by Johann Joachim Kaendler, 1734, produced circa 1740.
One of the two models, namely the "male" cockerel pot, can be identified in Kaendler's workshop report in May 1734: "18. A cockerel of medium size has also been made for a tea pot, where the tea also flows out of the beak. The tail is made in such a way that the cock can easily be lifted up and poured from." (Pietsch, Die Arbeitsberichte des Meissener Porzellanmodelleurs Johann Joachim Kaendler 1706 - 1775, Leipzig 2002, p. 24).
Regarding the second, female model, we can only assume that it was also created in the 1730s, possibly as a variation on the hen jug with nine chicks from May 1734. Johann Joachim Kaendler worked intensively on the subject of feathered fowl in the early 1730s. The best-known model of this period is the large Paduan cock and sitting hen from August 1732. The small functional models, intended as table decorations, were a commercial by-product of the large sculptures. A Paduan hen as a tureen, albeit a late version after Kaendler's death, is housed in the Dresden Porcelain Collection, inv. no. PE 3912 a, b.
Provenance
German private collection, acquired from Röbbig, Munich.
Literature
Illustrated in Röbbig (ed.), Kabinettstücke. Die Meissener Porzellanvögel von Johann Joachim Kaendler 1706 - 1775, Munich 2006, cat. no. 55.
Another cockerel jug formerly in the C.H. Fischer Dresden collection, sold J.M. Heberle (H. Lempertz' Söhne) Cologne 1906, lot 150.
Cf. Cassidy-Geiger, The Arnhold Collection of Meissen Porcelain 1710 -50, New York-London 2008, cat. no. 133.
Cf. Pietsch, Passion for Meissen. Sammlung Said und Roswitha Marouf, Stuttgart 2010, cat. no. 138.