The Peep Show, or the Magic Lantern (La Curiosité ou La Lanterne Magique)
Manufacture nationale de Sèvres (French, founded 1740; Modeled by Etienne-Maurice Falconet (French, 1716-1791))
c. 1757
- Medium
- Soft-paste unglazed porcelain (biscuit)
- Classification
- Ceramics
- Dimensions
- 15.9 × 17.2 × 13.4 cm (6 1/4 × 6 3/4 × 5 1/4 in.)
- Culture
- Sèvres
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Applied Arts of Europe
- Credit line
- Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Andrew G. Bustin
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Beginning in the mid-1750s, biscuit, or unglazed porcelain, replaced glazed porcelain in sculpture because fine details were sometimes obscured by glazes. In addition, the matte surface of biscuit pieces resembled marble, a medium favored in sculpture. Unglazed porcelain figures were often sold with dinner services, and, as such, they replaced fragile sugar figures, which had adorned dessert tables of the previous era.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
