Chinoiserie family group

The figure of a Japanese woman with two children belongs to the series of chinoiserie groups (such as Les Délices de l’Enfance), which has traditionally been considered a collaborative work by Johann Joachim Kaendler, Peter Reinicke, and Friedrich Elias Meyer from the 1750s.

Claudia Bodinek attributed the group to Peter Reinicke in the Kraków catalogue (loc. cit.), following Acevedo’s attribution in the catalogue of the Prince Amyn Aga Khan Collection (2017, no. 22). There, the model is dated to the year 1759.

As illustrated in the Kraków catalogue, the group exists in two variations: in one, the boy in the mother’s arms balances a conical hat on a stick held in his hand (as in the version from the Collection of Prince Amyn Aga Khan); in the other, the same boy holds the conical hat (without the stick) directly in his hand (the present group).

Comparative examples (both variations)

• Pauls-Eisenbeiss Collection, UK, pp. 112 f.
• Van Slyke Collection, no. 141 (there attributed to Kaendler, Reinicke and Meyer)
• Kraków catalogue, no. 95-A
• Collection of Prince Amyn Aga Khan, no. 22
• Shimmerman Collection, no. 165
• Adams, p. 149, colour plate LII
• Ole Olsen Collection, plate 36, no. 1378a
• Zimmermann 1926, p. 198, plate 63
• Das Porzellan als Kulturspiegel, 1925, p. 151, fig. 97
• Kocher Collection
• Collection of Baron von Born, Budapest; Lepke, 4 December 1929, no. 253, plate 11, text p. 53
• Collection of Gustav von Gerhardt, Budapest; Lepke, Berlin, 8 November 1911, no. 56, plate 16
• Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no. CVI-1978
• Museo Gianetti, Saronno, inv. no. 157 (= Britzk 2009, p. 341)
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, inv. no. 1982.739