porcelain with polychrome painted decoration, height 41.5 cm, leaves with minor restorations, Meissen, underglaze blue crossed swords mark 1924-1934, model no. A 43, red painter no. 8, model by Johann Joachim Kändler 1764 (Ru)

Lit.:
Bergmann A1-Z99, p. 266, cat. no. 528;

Lit.:
Meißener Porzellane des 18. Jh., Die Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloß Lustheim, p. 374;

Augustus the Strong’s residential city owed its Europe-wide fame not only to the royal art collections and the promotion of art at court, but also to the Elector’s natural science collections. The Dresden Natural History Cabinet is considered to be the most important in Europe. Augustus the Strong’s great interest in natural sciences and his personal zeal as a collector led him to spend huge sums on exotic animals imported into Europe by the large trading companies of his time, and even to finance an expedition to Africa. In 1731, several natural scientists travelled to Northern Africa with the instruction to send all “possible kinds of animals alive, or their skins, or as skeletons, or in the form of paintings” to Dresden. Thus, numerous exotic animals reached the Saxon court, where they filled aviaries and menageries or were exhibited as taxidermied specimens in the Animal Gallery in the Dresden Zwinger. Johann Joachim Kändler was able to resort to this collection of both live and stuffed animals as a visual source for his numerous animal sculptures. His intensive study of nature, which is recorded in his annotations in the Meissen Manufactory files, is visible in the lively naturalism of his porcelain creations, their characteristically dynamic poses and detailed surfaces.