Figure
ca. 1760-1765 (made), ca. 1759 (modelled)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
European artists often depicted China as a land of leisure and luxury. These fantasies are known by the French term 'chinoiseries' as these light and decorative subjects found particular favour in France in the eighteenth century. Chinoiseries soon became popular throughout Europe however, thanks to the lively trade in engravings of famous paintings or popular designs.
The French court painter François Boucher's designs were much copied by decorative artists as they were available as engravings from the 1740s onwards. His pretty and fanciful subjects came to epitomise the fashionable French Rococo style. The Meissen factory in Saxony made several models, including this one,after a series of chinoiserie designs by Boucher entitled 'Les Délices de L'Enfance' (The Delights of Childhood) inspired by engravings by J.J. Balechou.
The French court painter François Boucher's designs were much copied by decorative artists as they were available as engravings from the 1740s onwards. His pretty and fanciful subjects came to epitomise the fashionable French Rococo style. The Meissen factory in Saxony made several models, including this one,after a series of chinoiserie designs by Boucher entitled 'Les Délices de L'Enfance' (The Delights of Childhood) inspired by engravings by J.J. Balechou.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Hard-paste porcelain, painted in enamels and gilt |
| Brief description | Figure of a Chinese woman, hard-paste porcelain painted in enamels and gilt, probably modelled by J. J. Kändler, J. F. Meyer and P. Reinicke, about 1759, made by Meissen porcelain factory, Germany, ca. 1760-65 |
| Physical description | Figure of a Chinese woman, of hard-paste porcelain. Standing and turning right, carrying a parasol. Rococo-moulded base. Painted with enamel colours and gilt: green hair ornament, white long-sheered jacket with coloured Indian flowers, grey-blue skirt with a puce wash. Parasol shade lost. |
| Dimensions |
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| Marks and inscriptions | Crossed swords (faint) (Factory mark in underglaze blue) |
| Credit line | Bequeathed by Miss Florence Augusta Beare in memory of Arthur Doveton Clarke |
| Object history | From a series of figures and groups after chinoiseries by François Boucher, possibly the set engraved by J. J. Baléchon titled 'Les Delices d'Enfance' (good series of these, though not this model, may be found in the Ionides Sales of 27 April and 7 July 1964 and in the Pauls catalogue, pp. 438-39, 442-43, 464-66). |
| Production | Attribution from the manuscript catalogue dates from about 1970 and was compiled by William Hutton of the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio. |
| Subject depicted | |
| Summary | European artists often depicted China as a land of leisure and luxury. These fantasies are known by the French term 'chinoiseries' as these light and decorative subjects found particular favour in France in the eighteenth century. Chinoiseries soon became popular throughout Europe however, thanks to the lively trade in engravings of famous paintings or popular designs. The French court painter François Boucher's designs were much copied by decorative artists as they were available as engravings from the 1740s onwards. His pretty and fanciful subjects came to epitomise the fashionable French Rococo style. The Meissen factory in Saxony made several models, including this one,after a series of chinoiserie designs by Boucher entitled 'Les Délices de L'Enfance' (The Delights of Childhood) inspired by engravings by J.J. Balechou. |
| Bibliographic reference | Berling, K. Meissner Porzellan und seine Geschichte Leipzig, 1900, p. 196 |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | C.986-1919 |
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| Record created | June 24, 2009 |
| Record URL |
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