PORCELAIN FIGURINE OF MARIA DE VICTORIA
Meissen. Model J.J. Kaendler

Porcelain; white; on ebonised wooden base. The Mother of God; dressed in a long; baroque garment and with a wafting veil; carries the Christ child in her arms. She stands above a crescent moon and globe; as symbols of her earthly and heavenly spheres of action. A winged dragon winds itself at her feet; looking up at her and the Christ child with its mouth wide open and its teeth bared. Height without base 42cm.
Swords mark with three grinds. Condition A.

Provenance:
Hessian private collection.

Literature:
Pietsch; Ulrich: Mei遪er Porzellanplastik. von Gottlieb Kirchner und Johann Joachim
Kaendler. Munich 2006; cat. no. 133.

The motif of the victorious Mother of God gained importance in the Baroque period as an
image of the Counter-Reformation movement. The figure was ordered in 1738 and goes back to
the electoress Maria Josepha. The Austrian wife of Frederick Augustus II was a devout
Catholic and commissioned several figurines of the Virgin Mary from the manufactory. To
this Johann Joachim Kaendler noted in his work report: "A Mother of God likeness of the
same size as how the Apostles have been made before; which were also ordered by the royal
court. It stands such a likeness on a shpere; on which a dragon lies on which she steps;
has sitting on her left arm the Christ child; who with a spear stabs the dragon in the
throat; to slay it. Otherwise the mentioned likeness is dressed in garments of ordinary
dimensions".