A very rare Höchst porcelain Commedia dell'Arte figure of the Servant of Isabella as Pantaloone, circa 1752

Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, Olympia, 26 November 2002, lot 136;

Acquired at the above sale.

A further example of this rare figure, together with its pair Pantalone, belonged to the renowned collection of Emma Budge in Hamburg and were both dispersed in the forced sale of her holdings at Hans W. Lange, Berlin, 27–29 September 1937, lots 849 and 850. Following their restitution to Budge’s heirs in 2013, the pair subsequently entered the collection of Robert Compton Jones and were recently sold at Leonard Joel, Sydney, 30 May 2023, lot 66, and illustrated by Horst Reber, ‘Die Commedia dell’arte an der Höchster Porzellanmanufaktur’ in R. Jansen (ed.), Commedia dell’Arte: Fest der Komödianten, Stuttgart, 2001, p. 150, nos. 149 and 150; see also pp. 138-144 for further discussion of Commedia dell’arte models at Höchst. Reber has proposed that the Höchst Italian Comedy figures from this series were inspired by sculptures formerly installed in the gardens of the Schönborn Palais, known through a set of engravings published in 1727 by Salomon Kleiner. He further suggests that this figural series may have been commissioned by Johann Friedrich Carl von Ostein, Elector and Prince-Bishop of Mainz and proprietor of the Höchst porcelain manufactory.

A similarly decorated example of this model and its companion were in the Otto and Magdalena Blohm collection, Hamburg and Caracas, illustrated in Robert Schmidt, Early European porcelain as collected by Otto Blohm, Munich, 1953, pl. 43. They subsequently entered the Kiyi and Edward Pfleuger collection, New York, and today they are now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, acc. nos. 2006.865 and 2006.864.