Paar seltene allegorische Figurengruppen "Afr... Lot n° 2784

and "Asia". Original title from the Meissen series "Four Continents". Mounted on a Louis XVI style openwork floral pedestal made of gilded bronze. Naturalistic base covered with plastic flowers and leaves. In front of a group of trees, a young African princess is sitting on a powerfully modeled lion painted in light brown tones, her head turned to the right. The head is crowned by an imposing, plastically formed elephant hood and wrapped in a colorful feather robe with a gemstone necklace, above it an ankle-length, white, gold-bordered coverlet, which is held at the breast with a gold agraffe. In the left hand holding a bundle of ears of corn, in the right a golden scepter. As a counterpart, an Asian woman seated on a dromedary in front of a palm tree, looking to the side, wrapped in a white cloak over long, gold-fringed robe patterned with Indian flowers. Her hair is covered by an oriental hood decorated with feathers. In her left hand she holds a censer, in her right hand a golden scepter. The naturalistic painted dromedary with black straps is covered with a purple saddle cloth decorated with gems and tassels. Polychrome painting with gilding. Designed by Johann Joachim Kaendler, ca. 1745, rest; partly slightly washed out sword mark. Meissen. Around 1745. H. 22 cm. The four allegories of the continents are classified in Kaendler's taxa (1740-48) after November 20, 1745. "(...) A Grouppe Africam vorstellend, da ein Frauenzimmer auff einem Löwen sitzt (...) in gehöriger Kleidung mit einem Elephanten-Casquet auf dem Haupte" bzw. "(...) Eine Grouppe, Asiam vorstellend, es sizet ein Frauenzimmer auf einem Cameel und hat auff dem Kopffe einen Türcken-Bund." Cf. Menzhausen/Karpinski, In Porzellan verzaubert, p. 171f.; Jedding, Cat. Meissen porcelain in private ownership, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, fig. 240f.; Meister, cat. Slg. Pauls, vol. I, pp. 378f. A rare pair of allegorical figure groups of "Africa" and "Asia" from the series "Four continents" modelled by J. J. Kaendler. Restored. Partly crossed swords mark. Meissen. Around 1745.