JOHANN WILHELM LANZ (1725- vers 1760)

ALLEGORIC STATUETTES: THE PARTS OF THE WORLD, AFRICA AND ASIA Strasbourg, Manufacture of Paul Hannong between 1751 and 1754 Hard-paste porcelain, polychrome and gilt One head of Africa and the right arm of Asia reattached H. 27 cm, D. 13-14 cm Signed in hollow: PH Provenance Former Hugo von Hirsch auf Gereuth collection, Munich Private collection, Paris, 2011 Exhibition Bayerisches Nazionalmuseum 1909, Altes Bayerisches Pozellan, nos. 1276 and 1277 These two porcelain groups represent two parts of the world, characterized by a young woman in costume and an exotic animal. Africa, a young woman with a tanned complexion accompanied by a lion, wears an elephant's headdress. Asia, dressed in a wide drapery belted at the waist with an apron embellished with gold and wearing a diadem with an egret motif, is escorted by a dromedary. These figures in the Manufacture of Paul Hannong (Mainz, 1700 - Strasbourg ?1760), whose mark it bears, were modelled by Johann Wilhelm Lanz (born 1725), active in Strasbourg from 1750 to 1754 where the hard porcelain technique was mastered from 1751 thanks to the import of German kaolin. This theme was to be a great success, with a few variations; a copy of Africa is in the Mannheim Museum, and one of Asia in the Victoria and Albert Museum (fig. 1). Paul Hannong also had it made in earthenware, then again at Frankenthal in 1755. The privilege obtained by Vincennes had forced him to transfer his factory to the German domain in 1755. To make our two groups, the German J.W. Lanz combined the art of modelling Saxon porcelain with the art of the Versailles statuary. He modelled his work on the tetrad of the Parts of the World created for the gardens of Versailles on the occasion of the Great Commission of 1674 (fig. 2), through the engravings that were distributed throughout Europe from 1681 onwards (fig. 3). Here Lanz has freely reinterpreted Asia in order to make the whole more coherent. Further information given by the collector is accessible by QR Code in the PDF.