A Meissen porcelain model of a Sultan and an African on an elephant
Mounted on an openwork rocaille plinth decorated with applied porcelain flowers, the earth mound base inserted in the centre. The elephant with upturned trunk, sparse, fine fur decoration on the back, covered with a gold contoured and engraved saddle blanket. The mahout with flowered cloth drapery and rod sitting on the elephant's neck. The sultan in flowered purple robe and yellow cloak with (replaced) sceptre enthroned on a blue and an anthracite cushion, both with golden tassels. Blue crossed swords mark under the elephant's belly. Restored. H 34, W c. 34, D 25,8 cm, H porcelain without mountings 26 cm.
The porcelain modelled by Peter Reinicke, 1743, the mountings Paris, mid-18th C.
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam houses a Meissen porcelain "Elephant with Sultan and African" group mounted in a French clock case. In the course of his cataloguing, Abraham den Blaauwen took the trouble to list all the versions of the spectacular porcelain object known to him: in the Dresden Porcelain Collection, in Ansbach Palace, in the Bern Historical Museum, in the Frankfurt Museum of Decorative Arts, in the Wadsworth Atheneum Hartford, in Wilhelmsthal Palace Kassel, in the Hermitage St. Petersburg and in Waddesdon Manor. Numerous other pieces have also been auctioned, including one at Lempertz Cologne Auction 641, Jahn Collection, on 12th June 1989, lot 198.
Abraham den Blaauwen additionally studied the workshop records of Kaendler and Peter Reinicke in an attempt to narrow down the authorship and dating of the piece. Both sculptors mention elephant models, Kaendler as a work completed after hours in February/ March 1741 "A large elephant", his assistant Peter Reinicke in November 1743: "1 elephant 9 inches high, with a decorated blanket modelled in clay". Neither entry explains the mounted African and the Sultan. A figure only appears in January 1752, in the "livre-journal" of the famous Parisian art dealer Lazare Duvaux (c. 1703 - 1758), who traded in ormolu-mounted Meissen porcelain: "un éléphant de porcelaine de Saxe portant une figure". Today, the model is attributed exclusively to Reinicke. He was inspired not only by Kaendler's design, but presumably also by the ivory elephant with the mahout in the Green Vault (inv. no. II 275) made in Paris, which Augustus the Strong had "purchased most mercifully" on 2nd October 1731 "from the Augsburgers".
Literature
Cf. Rückert, Meissener Porzellan 1710 - 1810, Munich 1966, no. 1060.
Cf. den Blaauwen, Meissen Porcelain in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 2000, no. 300, p. 411 f.
For this type cf. Wittwer, Die Galerie der Meißener Tiere. Die Menagerie Augusts des Starken für das Japanische Palais in Dresden, Düsseldorf-Munich 2004, illus. 125, p. 298, the model by Johann Gottlieb Kirchner in der Porzellansammlung Dresden.
Cf. Röbbig (ed.), Hidden Valuables. Early-period Meissen Porcelains from Swiss Private Collections, Munich-Stuttgart 2020, no. 107, for the same group mounted in a Parisian pendulum clock signed Lenoir.
Cf. a further example in the collection of Franz E. Burda (Kunze-Köllensperger, undated, no. 77). The author also mentions an example in the collection of Count Brühl from 1753: "1 Türcke auf einem Elephanten".