Sebastian Kuhn
Department Director
This auction has ended. View lot details
You may also be interested in
Lot 7*
An extremely rare Vienna model of an elephant, circa 1750
3 December 2020, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £121,500 inc. premium
Looking for a similar item?
Our European Ceramics specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistAsk about this lot
Nette Megens
Head of Department, Director
Sophie von der Goltz
Head of Sale
An extremely rare Vienna model of an elephant, circa 1750
In the white, naturalistically modelled standing with outstretched trunk and long tusks, 23cm high; 49.5cm across; shield mark in underglaze-blue, red-painted MAK inventory number Ke 7523.28975 (one toe chipped, smaller chips to toes, small chip to left ear)
Footnotes
Provenance:
Heinrich Rothberger Collection, Vienna (by 1902);
Confiscated by the Vienna municipal authorities in November 1938;
Acquired by the Staatliches Kunstgewerbemuseum (later Museum für angewandte Kunst), Vienna, in May 1939 (inv. no. Ke7523);
Restituted to Heinrich Rothberger's niece, Mrs Bertha Gutmann, in 2003;
Thence by descent
Literature:
E.W. Braun, Altwiener Porzellan..., in Kunst und Kunsthandwerk VII (1904), ill. p. 222;
W. Mrazek/W. Neuwirth, Wiener Porzellan 1718-1864 (n.d. - 1970), no. 333;
C. Gschiel/U. Nimeth/L. Weidinger (eds.), Schneidern und Sammeln. Die Wiener Famile Rothberger, Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung, vol. 2 (2010), pp. 108-112 (illustrated)
Exhibited:
Vienna 1904, Ausstellung von Alt-Wiener Porzellan, K.K. Oesterr. Museum für Kunst und Industrie, no. 659
This is the only recorded example of this model. A different large model of an elephant was produced about ten years earlier by the Du Paquier manufactory of which only two examples are known: one forms part of an elaborate silver-mounted centrepiece probably given in 1740 to the Russian Empress Anna Ivanova and now in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (M. Chilton/C. Lehner-Jobst, Fired by Passion (2009), cat. no. 148); and the second, unpainted example is in the Sullivan Collection (Chilton/Lehner-Jobst, cat. no. 149).