Kolekcja | 09.09.2015 This sizeable porcelain figurine is one of the few ceramics items with a well-documented origin in the Wilanów collection. Stanisław Kostka Potocki purchased it in 1800 at a sale of the Rogaliński collection to augment his temporarily depleted china collection at the Palace in Wilanów. Potocki described his feelings at the auction in a letter to his wife, saying that they should be a good replacement for the china removed from Wilanów by his mother-in-law, Izabela Lubomirska, for her country house in Łańcut: "I have also bought cheaply some three trifles of Saxon porcelain, not too pretty ... There were no bidder but myself and some Germans, je crains qu'un grand berger et sa tendre compagne ne m'echappent [I fear that a large shepherd and his tender companion will slip away] as one Prussian has conceived a violent passion for them; they are exceedingly large devices, ... however I have no intention of paying more than five or six ducats for the pair of them. (Letters of Potocki to his Wife, letter dated 2 October 1800). Despite their considerable size, the Wilanów figurines cannot be matched precisely to the descriptions found in the 1832 catalogue, which lists all the chattels in the Palace but often uses such laconic descriptions such as "two figurines, standing." The flower girl figurine carries characteristic marks in red paint at the bottom, which can be matched to an entry in a catalogue drafted after 1856. The catalogue states that the two figurines adorned a pair of wardrobes in the Study in the wing formerly used by Lubomirska, and that they stood on sculpted and gilt pedestals. The figurines probably remained there until World War II, when they were confiscated by the Germans. Only the female figurine was eventually re-vindicated. Initially restored to the National Museum in Warsaw, in 1991 it finally returned to the familiar interiors where it had spend almost a century and a half.
Among the abundance of sculpture motifs produces by the Meissen factory, the majority are small individual figurines and figurative groups. These could be placed on the table among the table dishes, on wall consoles, and later on cabinet shelves. Large figurines, which posed considerable firing problems and required special exhibition space, are less frequent. The half-metre tall lady wearing a hat and holding a basket with flowers (Model B 65), called a Flower Girl, a Shepherdess or a Gardener Girl, initially arrived to Wilanów in the company of a Shepherd (Model 2686). Their maker, Johann Carl Schönheit, started out as a helper to Meissen's most famous modeller, Johann Joachim Kaendler; later he collaborated with Michel Victor Acier, who came to Meissen from France. From 1764/1765, Schönheit began to design works of his own. The subtle and graceful female figurine, made shortly after its male companion, is a perfect illustration of the artist's potential.
Barbara Szelegejd