A Meissen porcelain model of a pug dog and pup
A Meissen porcelain model of a pug dog and pup
With fire-gilt bronze mountings. A model of a pug dog suckling her pup on a flower and foliage encrusted base. The finely painted figure with a purple collar and delicately painted fur mounted on a Louis XV style ormolu stand. Unmarked unglazed base. The tail restored. H of dog 15, with mountings 19.5, W 19.2, D 16 cm.
Model by Johann Joachim Kaendler, 1744, produced soon after, the bronze mountings attributed to Paris, mid-18th C.
Porcelain pug dogs were exceedingly popular at the Saxon court. The owners of such dogs were often also members of a very special association, the legendary Order of the Pug. Even today, the work "L´ordre des Francs-Macons trahi et le Secret des Mopses relevé" by Abbé Gabriel Louis Calabre Perau, published in Amsterdam in 1745, is a fascinating read. In it he describes in particular detail the Order's solemn, but silly, admission ritual, which was designed to playfully poke fun at that of the Freemasons. The book was probably written as an invitation to a kind of satirical game in reaction to Pope Clemens XII's excommunication of the French Freemasons in 1738. The new Order also allowed women to become members, one of whom - as 'Groß-Möpsin' - would be appointed mistress of the lodge alongside the male lodge master known as the 'Groß-Mops'.
Provenance
Private collection, Rome.
Literature
For more on the Order of the Pug see Köllmann, Der Mopsorden, in: Keramos 50/1970, p. 71 ff.
Cf. Rückert, Munich 966, no. 1092, for the example in the Germanischen Nationalmuseum, inv. no. Ke 677.
Cf. Jedding, Meissener Porzellan des 18. Jahrhunderts in Hamburger Privatbesitz, Hamburg 1982, no. 270.
Cf. Dumortier/Habets (ed.), The T&T Collection. Porcelain Pugs A Passion, Brussels 2019, no. 1,2,3 and 21.
Kaendler's workshop records published in Pietsch, Die Arbeitsberichte des Meissener Porzellanmodelleurs Johann Joachim Kaendler 1706 - 1775, Leipzig 2002, p. 106, Dezember 1744: "Annoch eine Mopß Hündin Von Voriger größe Welche ein Jung Hündgen bbey sich hat daß sauget, sietzet Ebenfalls auf einem Rasen auf Sauberste aus Poußiret."
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A Meissen porcelain model of a pug dog and pup
With fire-gilt bronze mountings. A model of a pug dog suckling her pup on a flower and foliage encrusted base. The finely painted figure with a purple collar and delicately painted fur mounted on a Louis XV style ormolu stand. Unmarked unglazed base. The tail restored. H of dog 15, with mountings 19.5, W 19.2, D 16 cm.
Model by Johann Joachim Kaendler, 1744, produced soon after, the bronze mountings attributed to Paris, mid-18th C.
Porcelain pug dogs were exceedingly popular at the Saxon court. The owners of such dogs were often also members of a very special association, the legendary Order of the Pug. Even today, the work "L´ordre des Francs-Macons trahi et le Secret des Mopses relevé" by Abbé Gabriel Louis Calabre Perau, published in Amsterdam in 1745, is a fascinating read. In it he describes in particular detail the Order's solemn, but silly, admission ritual, which was designed to playfully poke fun at that of the Freemasons. The book was probably written as an invitation to a kind of satirical game in reaction to Pope Clemens XII's excommunication of the French Freemasons in 1738. The new Order also allowed women to become members, one of whom - as 'Groß-Möpsin' - would be appointed mistress of the lodge alongside the male lodge master known as the 'Groß-Mops'.
Provenance
Private collection, Rome.
Literature
For more on the Order of the Pug see Köllmann, Der Mopsorden, in: Keramos 50/1970, p. 71 ff.
Cf. Rückert, Munich 966, no. 1092, for the example in the Germanischen Nationalmuseum, inv. no. Ke 677.
Cf. Jedding, Meissener Porzellan des 18. Jahrhunderts in Hamburger Privatbesitz, Hamburg 1982, no. 270.
Cf. Dumortier/Habets (ed.), The T&T Collection. Porcelain Pugs A Passion, Brussels 2019, no. 1,2,3 and 21.
Kaendler's workshop records published in Pietsch, Die Arbeitsberichte des Meissener Porzellanmodelleurs Johann Joachim Kaendler 1706 - 1775, Leipzig 2002, p. 106, Dezember 1744: "Annoch eine Mopß Hündin Von Voriger größe Welche ein Jung Hündgen bbey sich hat daß sauget, sietzet Ebenfalls auf einem Rasen auf Sauberste aus Poußiret."
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Time, Location
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