542 - Gräfenthal Porcelain Figure Rearing Horse on an Oval Base, White Porcelain, presumably 1990s

Gräfenthal Porcelain Figure Rearing Horse on an Oval Base, White Porcelain, presumably 1990s Porcelain, white glazed. Rearing horse with raised forelegs, tossed mane and flowing tail, the right hind leg advanced, the tail carried down to the base as a support. The oval base plain, with an applied tree stump and suggested roots, its surface naturalistically textured. In the base the blue mark with a crown above the letter S and the semicircular inscription Gräfenthal Made in Germany, beside it the impressed model number 856. Good condition. 24x20x9 cm (HxWxD). A dense porcelain industry existed in Gräfenthal in the Thuringian Slate Mountains from the 19th century onwards. The Carl Scheidig porcelain factory, founded in 1906, specialised in figural porcelain and by the 1950s already listed around ten thousand model numbers; in 1972 the works were absorbed into VEB Gräfenthaler Porzellanfigurenwerk, in 1990 the business was continued as Porzellanfiguren Gräfenthal GmbH vormals Scheidig KG and it was struck off in 2009. The crowned S above the place name stands for the company name Scheidig and is the most recent form of mark of this house. The rearing horse is one of the most enduring subjects of Thuringian figure production and goes back to baroque equestrian monuments; in white porcelain without painting the modelling alone comes to the fore.