Cleveland Museum of Art

Figure of a Mischief Maker

Etienne-Maurice Falconet

Date: 1766
Medium: Unglazed soft-paste porcelain (biscuit)
Culture: France, Sèvres
Department: Decorative Art and Design
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art

Over a period of three years, designs for 17 young children involved in various activities were issued by sculptor Étienne-Maurice Falconet after which they were regularly reproduced as porcelain figurines. This figure, who pulls back a slingshot, would have been modeled after one of these designs. Decorative figurines like these were often included in elaborate dining services to be placed about a table along with the usual tureens and tableware. Thirty-one figures modeled after Falconet’s series were included in the dinner service given by French King Louis XV to Christian VII, King of Denmark, in 1768.

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Child with a dog, holding a basket of grapes, from "Premier Livre de Figures d'après les porcelaines de la Manufacture Royale de France, inventées en 1757, par Mr. Boucher" (First Book of Figures after porcelains from the Manufacture Royale de France, devised in 1757, by Mr. Boucher)

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