CIRCA 1740-46

This model is mentioned in Kändler’s Taxa of figures made between 1740 and 1748 as a figure made before 1746, ‘1. Arlequin, so statt des HosenKnoppffs eine Tabatiere hat, und Schnupff Tabacc herausnimmt, in der linken Hand eine Brille hat’ (1 Harlequin with a snuff-box - from which he is taking a sniff - instead of a trouser button, a pair of spectacles in his left hand).

See Meredith Chilton, Harlequin Unmasked, the Commedia dell'Arte and Porcelain Sculpture, Singapore, 2001, p. 299, no. 81 for an example in the George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, Toronto and p. 296, no. 77 for the Scowling Harlequin which together with the present model and eight others forms an informal group of ten large Harlequins considered to have been made by Kändler between about 1738 and 1741. The author suggests that 'although they were never listed together by Kändler in his records, and may not have been conceived as a series, their commonality of subject, similarity in size, and individual strength of character have led them to be grouped together'.

See Ulrich Pietsch, Die figürliche Meissner Porzellanplastik von Gottlieb Kirchner und Johann Joachim Kaendler, Munich, 2006, p. 67, no. 95, for an example of this model with paler colouring in the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden (PE152). Another example is in the Victorian and Albert Museum, London (C.16-1984). See also Vanessa Sigalas and Meredith Chilton, All Walks of Life, A Journey with The Alan Shimmerman Collection, Stuttgart, 2022, p. 432, fig 130.


A similar Harlequin figure with a snuff-box was sold by Christie’s London on 3 June 1996, lot 403, and subsequently sold from the Collection of Giovanni and Gabriella Barilla by Sotheby’s, London on 14 March 2012, lot 122. Another example, lacking pince-nez, was sold Christie's London, 3 June 2015, lot 29.