A Meissen porcelain cockerel teapot with hare finial
Teapot designed as a crouching rooster with finely painted plumage, the open beak forming the spout and the tail feathers curved round to form the handle. Some localised wear to the gilding and glaze. H 7.5, L 19 cm.
Around 1735, model by Johann Joachim Kaendler.
This extraordinary teapot was also based on a Chinese model, namely a wine or teapot made of red Yixing stoneware that was produced in the 17th century. The rooster is a German interpretation of the Fenghuang, phoenix, the sacred firebird of Chinese mythology.
The model is generally identified with the one described in Kaendler's workwork report from May 1734: "A rooster of medium size was also made for a tea pot, where the tea also runs out of the beak. The tail is designed in such a way that you can easily lift the rooster with it and pour out of it." However, the counterpart is a hen with chicks, so it can be assumed that the models described here are the jugs in the form of two bantam chickens. Ulrich Pietsch also doubted this attribution in 2010 and came to the conclusion that this model was "a variant that probably emerged at the same time" (p. 278).
Provenance
German private collection, acquired from Röbbig, Munich.
Literature
Cf. Pietsch, Die Arbeitsberichte des Meissener Porzellanmodelleurs Johann Joachim Kaendler 1706 - 1775, Leipzig 2002, p. 24.
Cf. Pietsch, Passion for Meissen. Sammlung Said und Roswitha Marouf, Stuttgart 2010, cat. no. 137.
A further example from the Jahn collection offered in Lempertz Cologne auction 641 on 12 June 1989, lot 106.