Meissen Group: "The Tyrolean Dancers" circa 1740, Johann Eberlein

A Meissen group of 'The Tyrolean Dancers', circa 1740, modelled by Johann Friedrich Eberlein (1695-1749) as two swirling figures with their arms linked, he in a grey hat with a purple rosette and band, green jacket with gilt bands and yellow breeches, she with a white blouse, a pale pink flower-sprigged bodice, red skirt painted with gilt and black flowers and gilt borders, white apron and yellow shoes with blue rosettes, on a shaped mound base and a gilt metal rocaille scrolled plinth, underglaze blue crossed swords mark to base. Overall height 18 cm. Provenance: The Robert Compton Jones collection, Sydney. Other notes: traditionally this group has been described as the Dutch or Tyrolean dancers though contemporary descriptions differ, see Ingelore Menzhausen and Jurgen Karpinski, in Porzellan Versaubert, Basel, 1993, pp. 136-7, Kaendler's Taxa for 1743 records '1 Groupgen wie ein Arlequin mit einem dergl. Weibel miteinander Pohlnisch tanzen'. Three versions of this model were made, the first modelled by Eberlein in 1735 with two later revisions by Kaendler. This model proved so popular that it was copied by both the Chelsea and bow factories and also by Chinese potters in the Qianlong period. See the similar model illustrated by Yvonne Hackenbroch, Meissen and other Continental porcelain, faience and enamel in the Irwin Untermyer collection, London, 1956, fig. 84.