A Fine and Rare Pair of Meissen Pug Dogs, Circa 1745-1750

A Fine and Rare Pair of Meissen Pug Dogs, naturalistically modelled by J.J. Kaendler and Peter Reinicke seated upright with tails curled on flower decorated mounds. Their coats are finely painted, the male wearing an iron-red painted bell collar, the female with a pink bell collar where both are decorated with gilt and enhanced with green bows. A suckling whelp lies recumbent beneath the mother.

This model is mentioned in Kaendler’s Taxa records dated June 1744, ‘2 neue Mops Hunde auf einem Rasen sitzend, angefangen zu poussiren und selbigen die gehörige Action und Gestalt gegeben, welche hernach dem Bildhauer Reinicken vollends fertigen lassen’ where the female with whelp is mentioned in December 1744, ‘Annoch 1 Mopshündin von voriger Grösse (i.e. der Rüde), welche ein jung Hündgen bei sich hat, das sauget, sitzet ebenfalls auf einem Rasen, aufs sauberste auspousiret’.

Pug dogs were particularly popular figures produced by Meissen in the eighteenth century given their connection to the secret masonic Order of the Pug. The order is said to be founded in 1738 by Clement Augustus of the House of Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria and Elector of Cologne in response to the papal bull In eminenti apostolates specula issued by Pope Clement XII forbidding Catholics from becoming freemasons. Members of the Order included both men and women who were required to take an oath of silence and swear their allegiance to one another in the name of friendship and loyalty, attributes embodied by the pug dog.

For further discussion where a similar mounted pair in the T&T Collection is illustrated see Claire Dumortier and Patrick Habets eds., Porcelain Pugs: A Passion (2019), cat. 1.

See a similar pair in the Marjorie Eichenlaub West Collection in the High Museum, Atlanta