A rare Meissen porcelain figure of a marmoset monkey, circa 1740

Property from the collection of comte Anne-Jules de Noailles (1900-1979), Thierry de Maigret, Drouot, Paris, 5-6 December 2023, lot 57;

Acquired at the above sale. 

Bibliographie comparative

S. Wittwer, The Gallery of Meissen Animals, Augustus the Strong's Menagerie for the Japanese Palace in Dresden, Munich, 2006, page 102, no. 88, et pp. 315-316.

This rare model of a Meissen Marmoset monkey was originally designed to be included in the scheme of near life-size porcelain animals for the menagerie gallery of Augustus the Strong’s Japanese Palace in Dresden. As early as December 1731, various monkeys were delivered to the Japanese Palace, although no specific details about the particular models were given. Wittwer (2006), attributes the Marmoset to Johann Joachim Kändler and dates it to the end of 1731. It would appear that the earliest examples destined for the Japanese Palace all feature a lightly coloured palette with predominantly white fur. Of these early examples, four appear to survive, which comprise one in the Dr. Ernst Schneider Collection at Schloss Lustheim, illustrated in Rainer Rückert, Meissener Porzellan 1710-1810, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, 1966, cat. no. 1048, pl. XXVIII; a second from the Ernst Gallinek Collection in the Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe, inv. no. V 19262, formerly in the C. H. Fischer Collection, Dresden, sold, Gallery Helbing, Munich, 13-15 May 1918, lot 381; a third, from the Lesley and Emma Sheafer Collection, New York, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, obj. no. 1974.356.346; and a fourth, is most recently illustrated and discussed by Claudia Lehner-Jobst in Brittle Beauty, Reflections on 18th-century European Porcelain, London, 2023, pp. 124-33, cat. no. 16. A further example with white fur was in the renowned pre-war collection of Gustav and Charlotte von Klemperer, Dresden, illustrated in Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld, collection catalogue, 1927, cat. no. 755, taf. 77. A particularly close example to the present lot, painted with similar dark fur, with an AR mark in underglaze-blue, was sold at Christie’s, London, 27 April 1998, lot 203, illustrated in Wittwer, op. cit., p. 102, and another was sold in the same rooms, 7 July 1997, lot 364.

comte Anne-Jules de Noailles (1900-1979)

The only son of the Mathieu Fernand de Noailles (1873–1942) and Anna Bibesco-Bassaraba (1876–1933), princesse de Brancovan, Anne-Jules de Noailles was raised in Parisian high society by a mother who held salons, bringing together the most famous intellectuals, writers and artists of the time. A great collector, Anne-Jules donated important pieces from his collection to the Louvre Museum, including fourteen pieces of 18th-century Meissen porcelain, and to the Musée national de la Céramique de Sèvres, he donated twenty pieces of 18th-century Vincennes and Sèvres porcelain.

Related Literature

Samuel Wittwer, The Gallery of Meissen Animals, Augustus the Strong's Menagerie for the Japanese Palace in Dresden, Munich, 2006, page 102, no. 88, and pp. 315-316.