Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706 – 1775) and Peter Reinicke (1711 – 1768) modelled their series of sixteen figures of London criers between 1750 and 1755. They are based on the set of engravings called ‘The Cryes of the City of London Drawne after the life’ by the Dutch-born painter and engraver Marcellus Laroon II (1648/49 or 1653 to 1702). [i]
The ‘Montabanck’ or Charlatan, engraved by Marcellus Laroon, circa 1688
Unlike Meissen’s two series of the Cris de Paris and the smaller set of St. Petersburg Criers, the London Criers vary in scale and so were evidently not conceived as a coherent series but as individual models or pairs. The Quack Doctor or Mountebank is the most elaborate, along with the Seller of Trinkets, and dramatic of the series.
Laroon’s ‘Montbanck’ is said to represent a Dutchman, Hans Buling, who was known throughout London for his flamboyant dress. His monkey was a ‘Jack Pudding’, a term for an attraction that would draw crowds.
The book at his feet is open on a page of alchemical symbols and the word ‘Probatum’, or proven, to inspire faith in his cures.
Vanessa Sigalas analyses the series in All Walks of Life: A Journey with The Alan Shimmerman Collection and illustrates the Laroon engraving that survives in the Meissen manufactory archive which is inscribed the model number 2018 and the cost of moulding it.[ii] Sigalas notes that there is no surviving record of who modelled the series in the Meissen archives but that they are generally attributed to J. J. Kaendler and P. Peinicke. This was a favourite figure of the dealer and author Yvonne Adams, who used it on the front cover of her book, Meissen Portrait Figures.
The impressed number ‘14’ is found on early examples of the Quack Doctor which are closer to the Laroon print and have more detail such as the tassels on the leggings and chain on the shoulder.
Condition:
Restoration to fingers of right hand and little finger of the left hand, lower part of rope below monkey’s left hand restored, chips to two flowers on the base
References:
Adams 1987
Len and Yvonne Adams, Meissen Portrait Figures, (Barrie & Jenkins, 1987)
Sigalas 2023
Vanessa Sigalas and Meredith Chilton (Ed.), All Walks of Life: A Journey with The Alan Shimmerman Collection: Meissen Porcelain Figures of the Eighteenth Century, (Arnoldsche 2023)
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[i] Laroon was a drapery painter for Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646 – 1723).
[ii] Sigalas 2023, p. 247 fig. 14.
Price: £16,000
