Paire de candélabres aux perroquets à trois lumières en porcelaine polychrome de Meissen,

A pair of Louis XV gilt bronze-mounted Meissen porcelain three-light parrot candelabra – circa 1750

The Meissen porcelain 18^th Century, the parrots modelled by Johann Joachim Kändler – circa 1742

The Vincennes soft-paste porcelain flowers 18^th 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.