THE DUKE OF WEISSENFELS SERIES

These two figures are from the celebrated group originally commissioned by Adolph II, Duke of Weissenfels, as table decorations (likely associated with his marriage to Friederike von Sachsen-Gotha in 1743), which Meissen then continued to produce. The series was a collaboration between Kändler, Eberlein and Reinicke and it appears to have consisted of eighteen figures, of which fourteen were by Reinicke and ten were based on engravings by Joullain. Comedy figures were particularly apt for the Duke's table as he had played the role of Scaramouche in the Bauernwirtschaft to celebrate the visit of Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia to Dresden in 1729. See M. Chilton, Harlequin Unmasked, Toronto, 2001, pp. 198-9, nos. 315-320, for a further discussion of the group as well as similar examples and the Joullain engravings upon which they are based.