This erotic porcelain miniature is from the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Russian or Continental.
The subject is a woman who has just found a flee in the folds of her robe. Right next to her ample bosom. She shouldn’t be resting easy though. There’s a complete infestation of flees dabbed in black on the back of the mound she leans against. An enamel painter’s laugh from a century and a half ago.
This is one from a group of four miniatures from the same unknown maker. None are marked.
There is a sincerity in the subjects of this group that suggests they were made not too long after the mid nineteenth century. The solidly pressed forms made from simple moulds and the less refined enamel work suggest last quarter of the nineteenth century. Standards declined in many porcelain factories in both Europe and Russia at that time. About 1880.
The other members of this group will be posted in the coming weeks. Have yet to find any documentation regarding them. Maybe it will be in the next book that comes to my door.
7.4 cm in height.
