Figural Group: Musicians (c. 1737): Art, History and Details

Figural Group: Musicians (c. 1737) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Meissen Porcelain Factory (German, est. c. 1710); Johann Joachim Kändler (German, 1706–1768).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

An elegantly dressed couple accompany one another in a duet while seated on a tall-backed settee in this German porcelain figurine. The woman is likely playing a lute, an early form of the guitar, while the gentleman joins in with a wooden flute. Their music-making reflects their courtship and intimacy—a typical symbolic gesture rendered in such figural ceramic sculptures.

Object facts

• Title: Figural Group: Musicians
• Date: c. 1737
• Creator attribution: Meissen Porcelain Factory (German, est. c. 1710); Johann Joachim Kändler (German, 1706–1768)
• Culture: Germany, 18th century
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: porcelain
• Dimensions: Overall: 20 x 29.2 x 16.7 cm (7 7/8 x 11 1/2 x 6 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Decorative Arts
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 1952.2

Collection credit

Gift of Rosenberg & Stiebel, Inc.

Further reading listed by the museum

• Foote, Helen. "Vincennes and Meissen Porcelain." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 39, no. 6 (June 1952): 124-126.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.