A very rare Meissen porcelain figure of an actor playing the bagpipes, circa 1740

Angela Gräfin von Wallwitz, Munich;

Patricia & Rodes Hart Collection, acquired from the above on 10 June 2004;

Porcelain from The Patricia Hart Collection, Christie's, London, 27 November 2013, lot 83.

Birte Abraham, Commedia dell'Arte, The Patricia & Rodes Hart Collection of European Porcelain and Faience, Amsterdam, 2010, pp. 14-15;

Sarah-Katharina Andres-Acevedo et al., 2020, Hidden Valuables: Early-Period Meissen Porcelains from Swiss Private Collections, Stuttgart, p. 478, cat. no. 173;

Sarah-Katharina Andres-Acevedo, Die autonomen figürlichen Plastiken Johann Joachim Kaendlers und seiner Werkstatt zwischen 1731 und 1748, Band II, Stuttgart 2023, p. 78, cat. no. 168.

This figure may be based on an engraving by Louis Surugue (1686–1762) after the painting entitled Daphnis by Charles Antoine Coypel (1694-1752), see the example in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, obj. no. RP-P-OB-74.382. A second example of this figure from the Collection of Marian and Michael Sabee sold, Sotheby’s, New York, 10 November 2006, lot 204, formerly sold Sotheby Parke Bernet, Inc., New York, June 20, 1974, lot 210. A third from the Collection of Frank H. Wyman, sold, Christie’s, New York, 7 May 2020, lot 263. A further example from the Eugenia Woodward Hitt Collection is in the Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, inv. no.1991.333, illustrated in Anne Forschler-Tarrant, ‘Eine bisher unbekannte Sammlung von Kaendler-Figuren', in Keramos 198, 2008, p.52, ill. 5.