Antique Porcelain & Fine Arts

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Giant Gardener Figure

This is a huge porcelain figure made by Royal Vienna around 1785. I have never owned nor seen such a large piece by them from the 18th century so I was thrilled to find it. The figurine is of a gardener wearing some nice clothes as well as a hat while standing on a green base with a tree stump next to him that still has one live branch with superbly modeled leaves on it. A shovel is lying on the ground behind him and a watering can to his side. The figure display nicely and I am somewhat amazed it is in the condition it is in. The figure of the gardener is in great condition with jsut one finger reglued and a small painted in flake on his green apron which would be simple jobs to hide it perfectly but is jut fine the way it is. The watering can is perfect and the shovel has one edge chip and wear to the paint though some of that might have been done on purpose in terms of the paint job to make it look used!? The leaves in the back are all perfect but now to te questionable parts. The tree stump has had some major work done on it as has the base. I am not sure how much but it was all overpainted needlessly which is sadly a common issue with restorers. Most of the base seems just fine but I suspect a large chunk was missing and replaced with a metal rim put into the bottom edge to hold it in place and give it some support. Same with the tree trunk - no idea what it looked like but there is heavy over paint and most of it except the top seems just fine and even the top was likely OK since a piece of the repair has chipped off and porcelain is under that and seems fine. I cannot find the piece anywhere to compare it to another one but I suspect it is mostly fine with some damage but none of any real importance or difficulty getting it redone perfectly. The underside base has old supports from the firing process mostly removed and it is totally painted over but I removed some to clean up the area around the mark. The condition issues are easily made up for by it being a giant 18th century piece with the main parts in great shape! The figurine is about 21 inches tall and the abse is about 9.5 inches in diameter. Very heavy! It is marked underneath with the underglaze blue shield mark with the dot used around 1785-90. There might be more marks hidden underneath the paint but I didn't want to play around with that. I could not find this model in any of my Vienna books, online or anywhere else so it's definitely not a common one! Please email me for more information or photos.

Price is $2499
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