A museum quality Meissen porcelain pilgrim couple
Both figures on tall, gilded plinths encrusted with flowers and foliage. The gentleman with (replaced) pilgrim's staff, black pelerine, blue justacorps and breeches and a broad white gilt bordered hat. The lady in a black pelerine with red ribbon, red striped bodice with blue laces, a blue skirt with a gold tendril border, and a black hat, holding a scallop shell in her right hand. Smoothed base with faint blue crossed swords mark, iron red inv. no. 441. The gentleman's hands reattached, the staff with pilgrim's flask replaced, the lady restored at the waist, both wrists and the fold of the pelerine, minor restorations to the plinths and floral appliques. H gentleman 28.8 cm, lady 27.3 cm.
Presumably after 1742, model by Johann Joachim Kaendler (November / December 1741).
Provenance
South German private ownership, Lempertz Cologne auction 976, 13th May 2011, lot 48.
Literature
1. In the Dresden Porcelain Collection (formerly the v. Klemperer Collection) with almost identical decor.
2. In the Bernese Historical Museum (Kocher Collection)
3. A single pilgrim on a flat plinth formerly in the Darmstaedter Collection (Schnorr v. Carolsfeld, Darmstaedter Collection Berlin, dece. Rudolph Lepke Berlin on 21-23 March 1925, lot 70)
4. A single pilgrim on a high pedestal at Kunze-Köllensperger, Collection Franz E. Burda. Meissen. Figuren, Dosen und Tafelgerät aus dem 18. Jahrhundert, , 1997, cat. no. 1.
Both figures in Kaendler's workshop reports of November and December: "1. a hermit on an ornamented pedestal / 2. a female hermit acceding to this." (Pietsch, Leipzig 2002, p. 87) as well as in Kaendler's taxa: " 1 hermit on an ornamented pedestal in appropriate clothing decorated with shells, in front of the abbess after Herfordt... 1 accompanying hermit, also decorated with shells, with a hat on her head." The patron was Johanna Charlotte, née Princess of Anhalt-Dessau, who presided over the ladies' convent in Herford from 1729 to 1750." (Pietsch, Meißner Porzellanplastik, Munich 2006, no. 14 - 15). In this text, Pietsch also refers to a red chalk drawing by Antoine Watteau from around 1709, which is in the Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden and may have inspired Kaendler to this design (Pietsch, Munich 2006, p. 21).