A pair of Louis XV gilt bronze-mounted Meissen porcelain three-light parrot candelabra – circa 1750
The Meissen porcelain 18th Century, the parrots modelled by Johann Joachim Kändler – circa 1742
The Vincennes soft-paste porcelain flowers 18th Century
Height: 31 cm. (12 ¼ in.) Width: 26 cm. (10 ¼ in.)
Depth: 17.5 and 16.5 cm. (7 and 6 ½ in.)
Provenance
Sotheby’s Monaco, 3 March 1990, lot 230
Partridge, London, 1991
Comparative literature
Similar parrots in the Wrightsman Collection are illustrated in C.C. Dauterman, The Wrightsman Collection: Porcelain, vol. IV, New York, 1970, pp. 58-63.
Between May and October 1740, the famous modeller Johann Joachim Kändler (1706-1775) created three groups of parrots for the Meissen manufacture. In contrast to other bird species that were unique models, the parrots came in different versions. The present pair are of a uniform shape and size but with variations in the enamel colours.
The production was mainly intended for Parisian marchands-merciers such as Lazare Duvaux and in particular for Jean-Charles Huet who had the monopoly on the sale of Meissen in France during the years 1730-1740. The archives of the manufacture indicate that Kändler had created some of his parrots of this size on behalf of Huet.