CIRCA 1755, BLUE CROSSED SWORDS MARK AT BACK, INCISED 27 TO UNDERSIDE

The Meissen manufactory created two set of Cris de Paris figures, the first, a group of seven male figures, was probably modelled by P. Reinicke, between 1744 and 1747. The present model is from the second series, which consisted of 34 standing figures, very slightly smaller in scale than the first series. Created after 1753, the second series was also probably modelled by P. Reinicke and it became the most extensive series of figures made at the Meissen manufactory.

The designs for this later series of Cris de Paris figures were taken from a series of watercolour drawings which were commissioned by the French art dealer Jean-Claude Huet (d. 1755), a merchant and dealer of Meissen porcelain in Paris. Three sets of watercolour drawings of these designs (which are partly complete) exist in the Meissen archives and one set is inscribed with the date 1753, suggesting that this may have been the date that the drawings arrived at the manufactory. It is assumed that the porcelain models were produced very shortly after this. The first set of drawings are inscribed with a ‘CH number’ and some are inscribed with factory numbers and instructions for the factory’s painters and modellers. Traditionally, the watercolour drawings have been attributed to the French painter Christophe Huet (1700-1759), due to the presence of the CH monogram.¹ However, Vanessa Sigalas & Meredith Chilton suggest that the watercolour drawings ‘do not resemble the oeuvre of Christophe Hüet… a well-known animal painter’ and that the CH in all likelihood, refers to Jean-Claude Huet, the dealer, who probably commissioned a local artist to produce them, see All Walks of Life, A Journey with The Alan Shimmerman Collection, Stuttgart, 2022, pp. 264-271 & 634, cat. no. 95 for another figure carrying a magic lantern.

A version of this model is illustrated by Martin Eberle, see Cris de Paris-Meissener Porzellanfiguren des 18.Jahrhunderts, Leipzig, 2001, no. 48. See also the example in the collection of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, illustrated by Rainer Rückert, Meissener Porzellan 1710-1810, Munich, 1966, no. 949.

1. See T.H. Clarke, ‘The French Touch At Meissen, Christophe Huet’s Watercolour Drawings for the Cris de Paris, 1753’, The International Antiques Dealers Show, Handbook, October 1990, pp. 28-33.