Mother and Child, based on the print, “Le mérite de tout pais”
This rare figural group by the Chelsea porcelain manufactory is a moving and intimate portrayal of a mother and child playing yoyo with a cat. Wearing Chinese costumes, the group is based on a composition by François Boucher entitled “Le mérite de tout pais,” first issued as a print in 1742. Modeled around 1749-50 by the Flemish sculptor Joseph Willems, the work is one of only two known recorded examples of this composition and is the only enameled example. It represents an early and experimental work, as Chelsea attempted more ambitious compositions of figural sculpture.
The ornamented costumes worn by the two figures evoke Chinoiserie, a style that drew upon eighteenth-century Britain’s obsession with China and its luxuries and evoked the “faraway” and the “exotic.” Here instead, Willems humanizes the figures. The scene playing out is familiar and intimate, a story of motherly caution and childish abandon.
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