A Very Rare Meissen Wine Pot/Teapot and Cover in the Form of a Monkey Modelled by J.J. Kaendler, Circa 1735

A Very Rare Meissen Monkey Wine Pot/Teapot and Cover Modelled by J.J. Kaendler, naturalistically moulded and painted as a monkey mother with its two young. The mother sitting on a mound, cradling her young which clings to her arms with arched back and open mouth to form the wine pot/teapot’s spout. The other young monkey, with belted waist and gilt decorated buckle, climbs onto the mother’s back with a fruit in its hands to form the handle and cover. The green painted leaves and twig form the cover’s finial.

See also an undecorated example in Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei (1979), pp. 272-273.

For another example, but with a chain belt, see Yvonne Hackenbroch, Meissen and Other Continental Porcelain, Faience and Enamel in the Irwin Untermyer Collection (1956), pl 91, fig 146.

Further Details
This model is mentioned in the Kaendler Taxa of 1735 which records ‘Einen Thee Pott in Gestalt eines Affens Welcher einen Jungen auf dem rücken und einen Vornen in den Händen hält, Woraus der Thee lauffen thut, geändert und in gehörige Gestalt gebracht, sitzet auf einem kleinen postamentgen Woran er mit einer Kette under Vorlege Schloß befestiget ist’ [A teapot in the form of a monkey, holding a young one on its back and another in its hands, from which the tea flows, modified and given its final shape, seated on a small plinth to which it is chained with a chain and padlock]. See discussion in Highlights of the Untermyer Collection of English and Continental Decorative Arts (1977), p. 110-111, no. 200. Monkey teapots like this may have derived from trinkspiele models made in Augsburg, see an example in the Chitra Collection (225).

Exotic animals such as monkeys were pets kept at court and fascinated both aristocrats and naturalists by their resemblance to humans which inspired a series of singerie type decorative designs.

See a similar example in the Irwin Untermyer Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (64.101.200). For a similar but undecorated example, see the Hans C. Syz Collection in the Smithsonian Museum, Washington (1984.1140.15)

See also The Marjorie Eichenlaub West Collection in the High Museum, Atlanta (2018.172), the Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens, Washington (26.79), and the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford (C851)

See a similar example but without cover in Ulrich Pietsch, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens (2011), p. 492.

See also an undecorated example in Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei (1979), pp. 272-273.

For another example, but with a chain belt, see Yvonne Hackenbroch, Meissen and Other Continental Porcelain, Faience and Enamel in the Irwin Untermyer Collection (1956), pl 91, fig 146.