205.
A ‘FAMILLE VERTE’ FIGURE OF ‘MADAME DE MAINTENON’
Qing dynasty, Kangxi period, early 18th century
22,8 cm high
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 4569.
Madame de Maintenon (1635-1719) has been the mistress of Louis XIV, king of France. Chinese ceramists in Jingdezhen found inspiration for this sculpture in a print depicting her, probably the one published by Nicolas & Robert Bonnart here illustrated, as noted by William R. Sargent (W.R. Sargent, The Copeland Collection. Chinese and Japanese Ceramic Figures, Salem 1991, pp. 104-107, nn. 48-49), who published a similar statuette together with a male figure who is though to be a portrait of Louis XIV. Another pair is illustrated in M. Beurdeley, Porcelain of the East India Companies, London 1962, p. 103, n. 74; see also the pair in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London (Lu Zhangshen, Passion for Porcelain, Masterpieces of Ceramics from the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, Beijing 2012, pp. 138-139, n. 28), the group with three figures including one very similar to this in the Porzellansammlung in Dresden, formerly in the collection of Augustus the Strong (1670-1733) (E. Ströber, «La maladie de porcelaine». East Asian Porcelain from the Collection of Augustus the Strong, Leipzig 2001, n. 22), the pair published by Howard–Ayers 1978, II, n. 601, and the couple in the Musée des arts asiatiques-Guimet, Paris (inv. n. MA3471a, b).
