Cris de Paris, crier for lemonade, J.J. Kaendler, 1756-63, Meißen

Description

Because of  the lack of television, radio and magazines, early mountebank and craftsman applied their news and goods. These „market crier“ were a highly visible and above all inescapably audible part of the life, partial natural sight, partly exotic outsiders – and so already early part of the art.

The 18th century, time of the rococo, experienced a boom with representations of the everyday life and its representatives, among them just also those salesperson types, which were received as „Cris de Paris “in art-historical language vocabulary. Here the models drafted by Johann Joachim Kändler protrude particularly. Among his „Cris de Paris“- series, which covers 34 well-known figures,  is also this young man in a costume of a courtier with yellow frock and violet knickerbockers, combed and powdered hair, offering a lemonade and a Petit Four to refresh. Because it concerned particularly in the category fashion, such fine-painted figures served to accelerate the conversation of the fine society. And: until today the expression „last crier” for fashion is still alive.

Johann Joachim Kändler (1706-1775) was for nearly three decades the coining personality oft he Königlich-Sächsische Porzellan-Manufaktur Meißen. With him the factory had an experienced leader concerning the technical interests of the porcelain production and artistically on the height of the productivity and invention.