An Extensive Collection from the “Cris de Paris” Series, Meissen 18th Century

porcelain, polychromed and gilt, 20 figures of the Cris de Paris or Parisian Cries, height c. 14–15 cm, model by Johann Joachim Kaendler and Peter Reinicke after 1753, underglaze blue crossed swords mark, model 18th century, partly decorated at a later date, partly restored, (GO)
In the 18th century, the streets of major European cities were filled with the calls of various traders and craftsmen offering their goods and services, often with rhymes or songs. Their offer was mostly aimed at members of the same low social class, hence wages were low and competition was fierce. The street vendors, or criers, were a popular motif in art, whether because of their faces marked by life or a romanticized perception of their world. This series includes a fruit seller, hunter, flower seller, poulterer, cook, nobleman "petit maitre", lemonade seller "limonadier", triangle and hurdy-gurdy player and other musicians such as the "tambourin", lemon and grape seller, etc.

Meissen also tried its hand at this subject. In the early 1750s, Johann Joachim Kaendler travelled to Paris on behalf of August III and met Jean-Charles Hüet, the most important Parisian agent for Meissen porcelain. It was on this occasion that he met Hüet’s brother Christophe, a well-known engraver and decorative painter. Kaendler commissioned him to create a series of 31 master sheets with Parisian street vendors in the Rococo style typical of the period. These pen and ink drawings are still preserved in the Meissen Manufactory archive today.
With its 35 models, the "Cris de Paris" is the largest series of themed figurines in the Manufactory’s production. Merchants dressed in the delicate colours of the Rococo period go about their work on rocaille pedestals decorated with gold. Most of the models are by Peter Reinicke. Nevertheless, some of the figures reveal Kaendler's signature style. He clearly supported Reinicke in his work or reworked models afterwards.
However, not all vendors refer to the templates supplied by Hüet. A few of the finely crafted figures are based on depictions by Boucher or Watteau, while others were probably the product of their modellers' imagination. By turning to everyday depictions, such as the street vendors, the Meissen Manufactory addressed an increasingly bourgeois clientele.
Shortly before the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, this reorientation was decisive for the later economic success of the manufactory, whose products became increasingly accessible to a wider public.

Lit.:
T H Clarke, The French Touch at Meissen: Christophe Huet’s Watercolour Drawings for the Cris de Paris, The International Antique Dealer’s Show, Handbook, October 1990, pp. 28-33