Lot Essay
This model is recorded in Kändler's Taxa of 1740-48 and variations exist without the figure of Harlequin holding feathers. The group may have been based on a combination of engravings, including an early 18th century engraving by Martin Engelbrecht after Molière's Le malade imaginaire (see the etching by Charles Jean Louis Courty, circa 1872 of the same scene, which is after a painting by Boucher on page....) and Engelbrecht's engraving Studying Language from 'Academia', published in Augsburg in 1725, see Meredith Chilton, Harlequin Unmasked, the Commedia dell'Arte and Porcelain Sculpture, Singapore, 2001, pp. 193, 195 & 301, figs. 312 & 313. A similar group was sold in these Rooms on 21 November 2005, lot 79.