The Polish Hand Kiss
Model by Johann Joachim Kaendler, Meissen 1743
17,1 high x 23 long x 14 deep (cm)
Description
Kaendler work report, 1743: "7. Ein Groppgen wo ein Pole ein Frauenzimmer küßet zerschnitten und zum ausformen befördert."
Kaendler TAXA: "1. Grouppgen, eine Pohln. Dame in einem Pelz auf Rasen sitzend, zu welcher sich ein wohlgekleideter Pohle kömmt, und ihr die Hände küßet. 14 Thl." (Menzhausen: In Porzellan verzaubert p. 203; Rafael Keramos 203/204 2009 no. 176).
Polish themes were exceptionally popular in Saxony at the time when the Electors Augustus the Strong and Augustus III were also kings of Poland. Dr. Erika Pauls-Eisenbeiss writes in the catalogue of her large collection (London 1972 vol. I p. 172): "Poles and Saxons were closely through personal ties under Augustus III, as they had under his father. Polish national life – elegant and yet rather strange – fascinated the Saxons. Marriages among the nobility of Saxony and Poland occured frequently, but there were also bourgeois union. Even today many Saxon families still take price in their Polish names and descent."
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