THE PORCELAIN POSSIBLY CIRCA 1736, THE DECORATION 19TH CENTURY

This group depicts the slightly elderly Venetian merchant Pantalone, one of the most popular characters of the Commedia dell’Arte with a beautiful young woman whose identity is not entirely clear. It is a rare first version of the group which Kändler subsequently re-worked twice, firstly in 1738 and then again in 1741.¹ The first model doesn’t appear in his Work Reports, but the second model appears in the August 1738 report where the description records that it is a re-working of an earlier model, noting that the ‘renewed’ group was ‘ready for moulding again, because the previous mould became worn after frequent use’.²

The group has often been referred to as Pantalone and Columbine, a young female character in the Commedia dell’Arte that he is often associated with, but the group is not part of a series, and Kändler does not refer to the lady as Columbine in his Work Report. Instead, he calls her a ‘Frauen Zimmer’, an old word for lady or woman, and when Kändler remodelled the group for the second time in 1741, the description in his July 1741 Work Report also calls Pantalone’s partner a lady, not Columbine.³ In addition, when the Former Johann Christoph Lange recorded working on 12 examples of the present model between April and May 1738, he described them as ‘12 Stück Pantaleons mit Frauenzimmer’ (12 pieces Pantalones with ladies).⁴

In 2001 Meredith Chilton suggested that the lady may be an actress in the role of a young and fashionable wife, or a lady in masquerade.⁵ In 2022, in their catalogue for the Shimmerman Collection which has all three versions of the group, Vanessa Sigalas goes further, charting the progress of change in the female figure, suggesting that the first figure, as in the present circa 1736 group, has unmasked her face to display her beauty but cheekily holds it behind her, suggesting she is ‘not as innocent as she might seem at first glance’, and that ‘she might be after the merchant’s money’.⁶ Versions of the first group typically show the lady holding a flower or a mirror in her left hand, making the present group which shows her amorously stroking Pantalone’s beard, both more unusual and a precursor of the later groups (if the porcelain of the present group dates to circa 1736).⁷ In the second 1738 version, the lady wears a long cloak and her mask is brought forward. Although it is more visible, it is still obscured from Pantalone.⁸ In the final 1741 version the mask is put in full view and the lady is transformed with more fashionable clothes with a diagonal ruff to her wrapped bodice.⁹ In all three versions, the miserly merchant Pantalone is virtually unchanged, hiding his sack of money from her behind his back.

Chilton suggests that Christoph Weigel’s 1723 engraving ‘Troupe of Italian Comedians’ is the print source for this group.¹⁰ While the print is not close to the group, it is very possible that it triggered Kändler’s imagination, and that he combined it with inspiration taken from a much earlier engraving of Pantalone by Jacques Callot of circa 1618-19 which captured the character’s typical pose and expression.

1. It is thought to be circa 1736, although it has also been attributed as a Kirchner model of circa 1732, see Meredith Chilton, Harlequin Unmasked, New Haven and London, 2001, p. 187 and p. 304, citing Erika Pauls-Eisenbeiss and Peter W. Meister, Porzellan des 18. Jahrhunderts. Sammlung Pauls, Frankfurt am Main, 1967, Vol. I, 294.
2. ‘Renewed the Pantalone as well as the lady who accompanies him and made such a group ready for moulding again, because the previous mould became worn after frequent use. In addition, an ornate table has been made on which a little dog is placed and can be put next to the figure’ (‘Dem Pantaleon Nebst seinem bey sich habenden Frauen Zimmer verneuert und solches Groppgen zum abformen aufs Neue tüchtig gemacht Weiln vorige Forme nach öfften gebrauch Wandelbar worden Darzu ist noch ein verziertes Taberetgen worauf ein Hündgen geleget, und neben die Fügur gesetzet werden kann, gefertiget worden’), cited by Ulrich Pietsch, Die Arbeitsberichte des Meissener Porzellanmodelleurs Johann Joachim Kaendler 1706-1775, Leipzig, 2002, p. 56.
3. For an example of this slightly later version of the group in the Gardiner Museum, Toronto, see Meredith Chilton, ibid., 2001, p. 304, no. 92 and p. 77. For both the 1736 and 1741 models illustrated opposite one another, see Ingelore Menzhausen and Jürgen Karpinski, In Porzellan verzaubert, Basel, 1993, pp. 124-125.
4. Menzhausen and Karpinski, ibid., Basel, 1993, p. 124.
5. Chilton, ibid., 2001, p. 74.
6. 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. 450.
7. For an example with a mirror, see Ingelore Menzhausen and Jürgen Karpinski, ibid, 1993, p. 124. For an example with a flower, see Sigalas and Chilton, ibid., 2022, cat. no. 139, p. 448 and p. 452.
8. A version of the 1738 group was sold from the Hadrian Merkle Collection by Bonhams, Paris, on 17 April 2024, lot 6. The Shimmerman Collection example is illustrated by Sigalas and Chilton, ibid., 2022, cat. no. 140, p. 449 and p. 452.
9. Versions of the 1741 group are illustrated by Chilton, ibid., 2001, p. 77; Menzhausen and Karpinski, ibid., 1993, p. 125 and by Sigalas and Chilton, ibid., 2022, cat. no. 141, pp. 448-449 and p. 452.
10. Chilton, ibid., 2001, p. 76, and see p. 189, fig. 305 for the engraving.