Paris – The first part of one of the finest collections of 18th-century Meissen porcelain sculpture still in private hands will be offered at Bonhams on 17 April 2024 during the Classics week in Paris. It was started fifty years ago by Hadrian Merkle (1942-2018), a German businessman and extraordinary and passionate private collector. The collection includes some of the rarest and finest examples of late-Baroque small-scale sculpture and offers a tantalizing and unique glimpse of the world seen through 18th-century eyes. Further auctions will take place in Paris in Autumn 2024 and in Spring 2025.

Sebastian Kuhn, Bonhams' Head of Continental Ceramics, said: "We are delighted and honoured to offer the first part of this extraordinary and important collection. Mr. Merkle's goal as a collector was to show the incredible ambition of the Meissen factory as well as the genius of its master modeller, Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775)."

Porcelain figures and groups were an essential part of table culture at European courts in the 18th century. The discovery of the secret of hard-paste porcelain at Meissen around 1710 led to the replacement of sugar sculpture on the table with the finer and more durable material that could also be painted and gilded. The elaborate table sculptures were an expression of beauty and the grandeur of the court but were also an amusing and sophisticated tableau to stimulate conversation among the diners and a diversion from the sometimes-rigid court etiquette.

In 1731, the sculptor Johann Joachim Kaendler - a student of the Dresden court sculptor Benjamin Thomae (himself a student of Permoser) – was appointed as a modeller at the Meissen factory. He perfectly understood the possibilities of the new material and created a magnificent and unique body of sculptural work. Kaendler's skill was equal to the extraordinary ambition of the Meissen factory: to represent the entire world in porcelain. Over forty years, he depicted members of the court; actors from the Commedia dell'Arte; musicians; tradesmen; allegorical figures; street criers; all the nationalities of the world from Europe and the Balkans to Turkey, Asia and Africa; to pastoral figures, villagers, and even beggars. His figures and groups are masterpieces of late-Baroque and Rococo sculpture.

Among the highlights is an exceedingly rare Meissen crinoline figure of a lady, circa 1737, modelled by J.J. Kaendler (estimate: €20,000-30,000). Formerly in the collection of Mrs. Charles E. Dunlap, the figure is first mentioned in Kaendler's work records in December 1736, and is today considered one of the rarest and most beautiful of his early sculptures.

A rare Meissen masonic crinoline group of lovers, circa 1745 (estimate: €40,000-60,000), also modelled by J.J. Kaendler, was formerly owned by the renowned Swiss collector, Paul Schnyder von Wartensee.

Other highlights of the 55-lot sale include:

• A very rare Meissen group of lovers with a birdcage, circa 1745, modelled by J.J. Kaendler(estimate: €40,000-60,000). The group is also mentioned in Kaendler's work records in March 1741: "A group, consisting of a man with a birdcage in which there is a parrot, beside him a woman giving the parrot cherries to eat and putting feathers on the man's head, whereas he presents her with a titmouse." Another example of this group is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

• A rare large Meissen vase, circa 1730 painted in Kakiemon style (estimate: €20,000-30,000), from the collection of Heinrich Graf von Brühl (1700-1763), the powerful Prime Minister of Saxony and Director of the Meissen manufactory

Born in Nuremberg in Franconia, Hadrian Maria Oskar Merkle (1942-2018) was a successful businessman in the transport industry. Like many great collectors before him, art and culture were his buen retiro from the everyday world. He was a member of numerous museum associations as well as the Gesellschaft der Keramikfreunde (Keramos), the renowned society devoted to ceramics. Alongside his passion for porcelain, he was an opera lover and regularly attended the Mozartfestspiele in Würzburg and Salzburg.
Alongside art and culture Hadrian Merkle loved the pleasures of the table: he was a gourmet and an exceptional wine connoisseur. His children remember their childhood home filled with art and their father as an exceptional collector. He combined business acumen and an instinct for the unusual and outstanding with a great passion for Meissen porcelain and so formed one of the finest collections in the world.