King Vulture
Johann Joachim Kändler (Modeled by Johann Joachim Kändler (born Saxony [now Germany], 1706–1775); Meissen, Electorate of Saxony (now Germany))
1734
- Medium
- Hard-paste porcelain and polychrome enamels
- Classification
- Ceramics
- Dimensions
- 58 × 43 cm (22 13/16 × 16 15/16 in.)
- Culture
- Germany
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Applied Arts of Europe
- Credit line
- Harry and Maribel G. Blum and Kate S. Buckingham endowment funds; purchased with funds provided by the Antiquarian Society; Applied Arts of Europe Sales Proceeds, Charles H. and Mary F.S. Worcester and Major Acquisitions Centennial funds;…
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
As elector of Saxony and king of Poland, Augustus II (r. 1694/97–1733) presided over the ambitious transformation of his capital, Dresden, through advances in architecture, the arts, science, and technology. Produced beginning in 1710 through royal sponsorship and funding, Meissen porcelain was an exclusive luxury good of its time. Around 1728 Augustus conceived of replicating the animal kingdom in porcelain for display in a Baroque palace that he was transforming into a showcase for his collections of Asian and Meissen ceramics. This porcelain zoo was intended for the long gallery on the main floor of the palace. By 1733, the year the king died, more than thirty different models of birds and almost forty animals had been made, many by the sculptor Johann Joachim Kändler, who worked at Meissen from 1731 to 1775. Kändler drew this vulture from life, which allowed him to animate his work with the creature’s quintessential spirit. Such porcelain animals remain the most vivid expression of Augustus’s wish, as elector and king, to possess and rule over the natural world.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
