An Extremely Rare and Highly Important Large Pair of Ormolu Mounted Meissen Swans modelled by J J Kaendler and Peter Reinicke.  Raised up on contemporary Rococo scrolled and floral ormolu mounts. Each swan standing on reeds, its head erect and wings furled back towards the tail. Their bodies, wings and plumage modelled in crisp low relief in great detail.

Further Details:

This example is the largest size of this model.

This model of the mute swan (cygnus olor), native to Europe, is first mentioned in Kaendler’s Taxa reports dated to November 1747, where Kaendler and Reinicke first produced small size models. The model then appears in an entry dated February 1749 in the Livre-journals of the Parisian merchant mercier Lazare Duvaux (c. 1703-1758).

Similar examples of the rare large size can be found in the following collections:
An example in the Porzellansammlung, Dresden (PE 31)
A gilt-bronze mounted example in Schloss Ludwigsburg
A pair mounted as candelabras from the Jayne Wrightsman Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2019.283.54)
A mounted example from the Alison Mellon Bruce Collection in the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (70.7.42)