A PAIR OF ORMOLU-MOUNTED MEISSEN PORCELAIN MODELS OF SWANS
THE PORCELAIN CIRCA 1748-1750, POSSIBLY MODELED BY J.J. KÄNDLER, THE DECORATION 19TH CENTURY, THE ASSOCIATED ORMOLU BASES CIRCA 1745-1749

Details
A PAIR OF ORMOLU-MOUNTED MEISSEN PORCELAIN MODELS OF SWANS THE PORCELAIN CIRCA 1748-1750, POSSIBLY MODELED BY J.J. KÄNDLER, THE DECORATION 19TH CENTURY, THE ASSOCIATED ORMOLU BASES CIRCA 1745-1749 Each head turned in the opposing direction, the eyes and beak shaded in black and iron-red, the body and folded wings lightly molded and incised with plumage, modeled resting on a grassy mound base amid turquoise reeds and bullrushes, on an elaborate naturalistic ormolu base cast with rockwork and foliage, each base stamped with the 'C' couronné poinçon 13 ½ in. (34.2 cm.) and 13 in. (33 cm.) high, overall

Provenance
Baroness Renée de Becker, New York (1903-1987). Mr. and Mrs. Deane Johnson, Bel Air, Los Angeles; Sotheby Parke-Bernet, 9 December 1972, lot 46. With The Antique Porcelain Company, New York. Acquired by Annie Laurie Aitken (1900-1984) and Russell Barnett Aitken (1910-2002) from the above on 12 December 1972.

Literature
C. Louise Avery, exhibition catalogue, Masterpieces of European Porcelain, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1949, no. 285, pl. IX. Sotheby Parke Bernet: Art at Auction 1972-1973, Two Hundred and Thirty-Ninth Season, New York, 1973, p. 471, fig. 14. J. Archer Abbott, Jansen, New York, 2006, p. 33. Exhibited New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Masterpieces of European Porcelain, 18 March - 15 May 1949, no. 285.

Lot Essay
The 'C' couronné poinçon was a tax mark employed in France between March 1745 and February 1749 on any alloy containing copper. The modeler of these elegant swans is uncertain, although many scholars have attributed them to J.J. Kändler. In 1735 Johann Friedrich Eberlein created two different and very large swan models for the King’s Japanese Palace in Dresden (the upright swan is almost 75 cm. high)(1), and in the same year he also produced a smaller model of a swan for the Japanese Palace, which was almost 32 cm. high, larger than the present models, but very similar in form(2). The ormolu-mounted Meissen swans in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam(3), are also similar in form and are attributed to Kändler, but are 22 cm. in height—smaller than the present models—and the attribution is not supported by a record of them in Kändler’s work reports(4). Kändler worked on models of swans in collaboration with Reinicke in November 1747, but these models appear to be smaller. Kändler’s Arbeitsberichte [work report] records two models of small swans with cygnets: Zwey Modelle zu kleinen Schwanen mit Jungen ausgestellet und in gehörige positur gesetzet(5). He noted that the models were ‘small’, but he did not specify a size. Reinicke's Arbeitsberichte records two entries relating to swans in the same month, the first notes Ein Schwahn in Thon rein boussirt [a swan set in clay], and the second notes Einen Schwahn mit 2. Jungen zu vorhergehenden in Thon rein bouhsirt [a swan with two cygnets polished in clay](6). 'Cygnes de Saxe' were popular among French elite and shortly after their production began at Meissen the marchand mercier Lazare-Duvaux began offering mounted examples to his clientele. Among the recorded examples mounted as candelabra are a pair, previously in the collection of Prince Arthur of Connaught, later sold from the collection of C. Douglas Dillon; Sotheby's, New York, 24 October 2003, lot 42, and a pair with more neoclassical mounts sold from the collection of Lily and Edmond Safra, 18-21 October 2011, lot 763. Rarer still are those large-scale swans with eighteenth-century ormolu bases but no candle arms, as on these examples, thus enabling the full majesty of the swans to be admired to the fullest. Among the only other swans recorded of this type is a pair, formerly in the collection of Nelson Rockefeller (when fitted with later candle arms), and subsequently sold from the collection of Leon Levy; Sotheby's, Paris, 2 October 2008, lot 18 (€660,750). Also compare the pair formerly in the Wrightsman Collection, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, obj. no. 2019.283.53. RENEE DE BECKER Baroness Renée de Becker (1903-1987) was descended from Baron James de Rothschild through her grandfather, Baron Gustave de Rothschild, while her parents were Baron Léon Lambert and Zoé Lucie de Rothschild. She was one of the great society tastemakers in the United States of the Post-War years, part of a group of sophisticated and cultivated émigrés who had fled the turmoil of wartime Europe. Following her divorce from Baron Paul de Becker Remy in 1938, she eventually settled in New York with her companion, Baron Erich von Goldschmidt Rothschild, in an apartment at 820 Fifth Avenue, where she lived surrounded by le goût Rothschild, including these splendid figures of swans which can be glimpsed in contemporary photographs on a marble mantel. She was particularly passionate about Meissen porcelain, and was one of the largest lenders to the Masterpieces of European Porcelain exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1949, which featured these swans. Her personal taste greatly influenced the celebrated collector and philanthropist Jayne Wrightsman, just as she was developing an interest in eighteenth-century French art and furniture, and whose collections would later develop into the fabled Wrightsman Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum. The Baroness also introduced the Wrightsmans to famed interior designer and president of Maison Jansen, Stéphane Boudin, who advised the couple on purchases, collecting and decorating. When she ultimately decided to return to Europe and settle in Rome, it was the Wrightsmans who took her apartment at 820 Fifth Avenue, which remained Jayne Wrightsman’s principal residence until the end of her life. Much of Renée de Becker's porcelain collection, including these swans, was subsequently acquired by Anne Ford Johnson, whose first husband was Henry Ford II. The sale of her collection of French furniture and work of art in 1972 was a landmark event, totaling over $2 million, with these swans selling for the remarkable sum of $85,000. The sale also included the celebrated console supplied by Riesener for the Cabinet Intérieur of Marie-Antoinette, which for many years held the world auction record for a work of French furniture. 1. Samuel Wittwer, The Gallery of Meissen Animals, Munich, 2004, pp. 353-354 and Sarah- Katharina Andres-Acevedo, Die Autonomen Figürlichen Plastiken Johann Joachim Kaendlers und seiner Werkstatt, Stuttgart, 2023, Vol. 2, p. 43, no. 82. 2. Sarah-Katharina Andres-Acevedo, ibid., 2023, Vol. 2, p. 43, no. 83. 3. Abraham L. den Blaauwen, Meissen Porcelain in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2000, pp. 416-417. 4. Also see Ulrich Pietsch, Meissner Porzellanplastik, Catalogue of the Porzellansammlung, Dresden, Munich, 2006, p. 200, Kat. Nr. 312-313, for a pair of very similar models (of 31 cm. and 32 cm. high) which Pietsch attributes to Kändler. 5. Ulrich Pietsch, Die Arbeitsberichte des Meissener Porzellanmodelleurs, Johann Joachim Kaendler, Leipzig, 2002, p. 121. 6. Sarah-Katharina Andres-Acevedo, Die Autonomen Figürlichen Plastiken Johann Joachim Kaendlers und seiner Werkstatt, Stuttgart, 2023, Vol. 1, p. 307." Read more