- Museum number
- 1940,1002.1
- Description
-
Figure of Europe; hard-paste porcelain; moulded; partly-draped female figure, wearing a pale purple cloak lined with canary yellow, stands with her right arm raised and her left hand resting on a rococo shield on a flat mound base of roughly rectangular form; on her head she wears a grey helmet with an orange plume; her hair is brown; at the back the cloak rests on a suit of armour; on the elaborate shield, painted red-brown and with gilded scrolls, is a galloping horse facing left painted in grey-brown; the base is flat and unglazed; no marks.
- Production date
- 1752-1754 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 26.20 centimetres
- Curator's comments
-
Savage 1958 illustrated this figure as Frankenthal, but it has since been reattributed.
Dawson 1985
This model is extremely rare and only two other comparable examples have been discovered; all are slightly different. F. H. Hofmann illustrated an example bearing the lion mark in underglaze-blue in 'Frankenthaler Porzellan', Munich, 1911, Band I, Tafel 4, no. 10. The base is similar to the British Museum figure but the horse faces towards the right, the helmet is more elaborate and the figure wears sandals. It was in the Herr Karl Jourdan collection, Frankfurt am Main, and is pictured with the other Four Parts of the World, including two different versions of Asia. It is probably the same figure as the one illustrated by H. Haug, 'La Collection Céramique du Musée des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg', Strasbourg, 1924, fig. 33. A second figure impressed PH was sold by Rudolf Lepke, Berlin, December 1924 from the Jean Wurz collection, Mannheim, no. 105, together with Africa and Asia. The base of this example is in the rococo style, and scattered flower sprays decorate the drapery. There has been considerable discussion about the origin and date of this series of figures which were modelled by Johann Wilhelm Lanz around 1752-4 for Paul Anton Hannong. Hannong was director of the porcelain factory at Strasbourg, on French soil, between about 1752 and 1755 when the concern moved to Frankenthal where it came under the protection of the Elector Palatine, Karl Theodor. In the opinion of E. Heuser, 'Porzellan von Strassburg und Frankenthal im Achtzehnten Jahrhundert', Neustadt an der Haardt, 1922, pp. 87-89, the early Strasbourg products had flat rather than rococo bases.
Text from Dawson 1994 (revised edition 2000)::
The fugure is part of a series of Four Parts of the World, attributed to Johann Wilhelm Lanz at Paul-Antoine Hannong's Strasbourg porcelain factory c. 1752-4. A tin-glazed example of America is known in a private collection (see exh. Les oeuvres de Hannong: faïences de Strasbourg et Haguenau, Musée des arts décoratifs, Palais-Rohan, Strasbourg, 1971, p. 160) and a figure of Europe is in the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin (Inv. 31,57, exh. Die Verführung der Europa, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin, August-October 1988, p. 271, no. 115). Porcelain figures of Europe, Africa and Asia were sold from the Jean Wurz Collection in Berlin in 1924 (Sold Lepke, Berlin, 10-11 December 1924., Lot 104 [Africa] impressed PH, 6, H. 24 cm; lot 106 (Asia], impressed PH lion in blue, H. 24 cm. The author is indebted to Kate Foster for bringing these pieces to her attention. Figures of Africa and Asia were in the trade in Germany in 1996), and an example of Asia is in the Musée des arts décoratifs, Strasbourg (Illus. Dupont, 1987, p. 99, with Europe). A porcelain figure of America is in the Seattle Art Museum, USA (J. Emerson, Selections of Fremch Porcelain from the Eighteenth European Collection of the Seattle Art Museum, privately published, French Porcelain Society, London,V1, 1990, p. 14).
The iconography of the Four Parts of the World was already well established by the middle of the eighteenth century. Its development has been discussed by Petra Krutisch in an essay in the exhibition catalogue 'Europa - ein Erdteil unter anderen (Petra Krutisch , 'Europa - ein Erdteil unter anderen', in exh. Die Verführung der Europa, Staatlichte Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz Kunstgewerbermuseum, Berlin, August-October 1988, pp. 166-180).
The earliest porcelain figure of Europe is the one modelled for the Meissen factory by Johann Freidrich Eberlein in 1746 or 1747 (C. Albiker, Die Meissner Porzellantiere im 18 Jahrbundert, Berlin, 1935, no. 310, pl. LXXX). A seated female figure of a queen holding an apple surmounted by a cross and sceptre in her left and right hands respectively, her flowered skirt draped over a cartographer's globe, leans on a dappled horse facing right. Europa, who was also represented as a warrior, is a possible confusion with Minerva.
Nothing is known of the career of J. W. Lanz, who was evidently a trained sculptor, apart from his work for Hannong both at Strasbourg and Frankenthal (A brief biography of Lanz, who married Marie-Madeleine Moser, who bore him a daughter, Marie-Madeleine , baptised in the Catholic parish of Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux, Strasbourg, was published by H. Haug in Les faïences et porcelaines de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, 1922, p. 40. The author is indebted to the Director of the Archives Municipales de Strasbourg , M. J.-Y. Mariotte, for the information that Lanz's marriage was registered at the Catholic church of Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux on 26 May 1752. Lanz [called Laütz] is described as a native of Obergladbach in the diocese of Mayence, and was the son of Jean Guillaume Lanz, a tailor. His wife was from Molsheim. Pierre-Antoine Hannong was a witness to the marriage and godfather to the birth of their son Charles-Françoise-Guillaume on 28 July 1754. An outline of Lanz's career, with figures and groups which have been attributed to him together with some of the older literature, not all superseded, is given in Thieme-Becker, Allgemeine Lexicon der Bilende Künste, Vol. XXII, Leipzig, 1928, pp. 161-3).
-
Dawson 1985
This model is extremely rare and only two other comparable examples have been discovered; all are slightly different. F. H. Hofmann illustrated an example bearing the lion mark in underglaze-blue in 'Frankenthaler Porzellan', Munich, 1911, Band I, Tafel 4, no. 10. The base is similar to the British Museum figure but the horse faces towards the right, the helmet is more elaborate and the figure wears sandals. It was in the Herr Karl Jourdan collection, Frankfurt am Main, and is pictured with the other Four Parts of the World, including two different versions of Asia. It is probably the same figure as the one illustrated by H. Haug, 'La Collection Céramique du Musée des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg', Strasbourg, 1924, fig. 33. A second figure impressed PH was sold by Rudolf Lepke, Berlin, December 1924 from the Jean Wurz collection, Mannheim, no. 105, together with Africa and Asia. The base of this example is in the rococo style, and scattered flower sprays decorate the drapery. There has been considerable discussion about the origin and date of this series of figures which were modelled by Johann Wilhelm Lanz around 1752-4 for Paul Anton Hannong. Hannong was director of the porcelain factory at Strasbourg, on French soil, between about 1752 and 1755 when the concern moved to Frankenthal where it came under the protection of the Elector Palatine, Karl Theodor. In the opinion of E. Heuser, 'Porzellan von Strassburg und Frankenthal im Achtzehnten Jahrhundert', Neustadt an der Haardt, 1922, pp. 87-89, the early Strasbourg products had flat rather than rococo bases.
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- Right hand restored, finger missing; shield restored (discoloured); crack across her right foot; chips to fringes on armour; crack along base of arrow at back (notes made when piece exhibited in 1985).
- Acquisition date
- 1940
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1940,1002.1