A MEISSEN PORCELAIN COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE FIGURE OF PANTALONE, FORMERLY IN THE ROCKEFELLER COLLECTION

CIRCA 1741, MODELED BY J.J. KÄNDLER

Details

Modeled with his hands behind his back, striding forward and sweeping his long coat aside, wearing a black cap and a red tunic and breeches with yellow rosettes at the knees, a dagger slung from his belt, on a mound base applied with flowers and foliage
6 1/4 in. (15.9 cm.) high
Provenance

The Estate of Nelson A. Rockefeller; Sotheby's, New York, 4 November 1980, lot 192.


Lot Essay

Kändler appears to have modeled this figure after the engraving 'Habit de Pantalon Ancien' by François Joullain, after Jacques Callot, which appeared as an illustration in Luigi Riccoboni's Histoire du Théatre Italien, published in Paris in 1728. The figure itself is an excerpt from the third version of a figure group often described as 'Pantalone and Columbine', as it included Pantalone with an actress. Kändler first modeled this group circa 1736, then reworked it in 1738 and then finally reworked it a second time in 1741 to include the version of Pantalone represented here. Although Kändler's monthly work reports do not describe his creation of the earliest model, a 1738 entry confirms that the original mold had become unusable and required remaking.
Figures of Pantalone alone were excerpted from both the 1736 and 1741 versions of figural group, the latter being the source of the sole figure represented in this lot. See M. Chilton, Harlequin Unmasked: The Commedia dell'Arte and Porcelain Sculpture, Toronto, 2001, p. 188 for the 1736 model of Pantalone alone, and p. 78 for the 1741 group of Pantalone and Columbine. For a side-by-side comparison of the 1736 and 1741 Pantalone and Columbine models, see Y. Hackenbroch, Meissen and Other Continental Porcelain, Faience and Enamel in the Irwin Untermyer Collection, London, 1956, pp. 75-76, figs. 69-70, pl. 50. Also see Abraham den Blaauwen, Meissen Porcelain in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2000, pp. 432-434, no. 316 for a full discussion of the evolution of the Pantalone and Columbine group.