CIRCA 1755, BLUE CROSSED SWORDS MARK

The Russian Peasants, or St. Petersburg Criers as they are also known, are a thematically similar group, but they differ to the Cris de Paris figures, in that they were not created as a series. They were modelled in the 1750s, during the same period as the Cryes of London and Cris de Paris series, when demand for such figures was high. The Paris dealer Edme Choudard-Desforges appears to have had them in stock and they are recorded in his inventory of 1759, ‘Russian figures with characters referring to the Paris Criers’.¹ The majority of scholars agree that they were modelled by Peter Reinicke (1711-1768) and as a group they show a certain amount of uniformity. Traditionally the Russian Peasants were said to be adapted from Jean-Baptiste Le Prince’s (1703-1770) Divers Ajustements et usages de Russie. Le Prince was a student of Boucher, who travelled to Russia in 1758, making a series of drawings of his impressions of Russian life. On his return to Paris, his drawings were first published as etchings in 1764. Although Le Prince’s etchings were subsequently used as a print source for porcelain, the date of his visit to Russia and the publication of his designs, would indicate that they were not the source of inspiration for the present group. There is some uncertainty regarding the exact number of Russian Peasants that were produced at the Meissen manufactory due to the difficulties in identifying them in archival sources, but it is thought that there are around ten figures.

See the example of this figure sold in these Rooms, 4 June 2013, lot 50.

1. Vanessa Sigalas and Meredith Chilton, All Walks of Life, A Journey with The Alan Shimmerman Collection, Meissen Porcelain Figures of the Eighteenth Century, Stuttgart, 2022, p. 311.