A GROUP WITH MARRIAGE SCENE WITH HYMENAIOS AND AMOR

Description:

Volkstedt, circa 1780/81
H. 25,5 cm
From a centrepiece. Model by Johann Friedrich Franz Kotta. Natural plinth with rocaille relief, without mark. Repaired hairline crack, figures and extremities partially restored, one cherub wing lost.
Jan Ahlers Collection
Modelled on the occasion of the marriage of Hereditary Prince Friedrich Karl von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt (1736-1793) to Auguste Louise Friederike of Saxe-Gotha (1752-1805) on 28 November 1780. On moving into the royal seat of Rudolstadt in 1781, Christian Nonne, tenant of the Volkstedt porcelain manufactory, and his brother-in-law Johann Philipp Bellermann dedicated a poem of homage to the couple, presumably with this homage group (see Peters 1991, p. 15/16), the original of which is preserved in the State Art Collections in Weimar. Two further versions without princely ligatures are in the Veste Coburg. According to Sattler (p. 94), this centrepiece was Kotta's first work in Volkstedt, after he had made a similar model for the Prince of Hohenlohe-Kirchberg in Closter Veilsdorf in the first half of 1778.