Antique Meissen Porcelain Golden Oriole Bird Figurine – Kandler Model 820, Hand Painted, Applied Flowers, Crossed Swords, Germany 1891-1918

❋ 𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒕?
A Meissen figure of the Eurasian golden oriole — Pirol in the factory's records — caught mid-song on a bare tree stump, in hard-paste porcelain with applied flowers at the foot. This is the large casting, about 10.5–11 inches tall: a cabinet or mantel piece scaled well above the small bird models, the stump carrying the weight so the bird sits high on its toes.

❋ 𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒊𝒕 𝒎𝒂𝒅𝒆?
The wings are the tell. Each primary is modelled as a separate blade with its central shaft defined, where most porcelain birds paint their feathering onto a smooth surface; at the shoulder the amber passes into black in layered strokes rather than a flat line, and the same brush drew the plume markings across the head. Every leaf and blossom on the stump was moulded on its own and fixed in place before firing — fussy, fragile work that most quickly betrays a careless reproduction.

The figure was cast from the factory's own eighteenth-century moulds, assembled by hand, and painted in polychrome enamels over the glaze; the base is solid, with a small firing vent at the centre to carry it through the kiln.

❋ 𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒕, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒅𝒐 𝒘𝒆 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘?
Between 1891 and the First World War. The word Germany appears alone — the export marking American tariff law required from 1891, before "Made in Germany" replaced it — and the underglaze crossed swords carry no cancellation strokes, so the piece passed as first quality. The impressed 820 names the model; an impressed 290 records the decorator.

❋ 𝑾𝒉𝒐 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒊𝒈𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒕?
Johann Joachim Kändler, the sculptor of Augustus the Strong's porcelain menagerie for the Japanese Palace in Dresden — the project that all but invented the porcelain figure. His associate Johann Gottlieb Ehder refined the oriole around 1740–41, when it entered the books as model 820. Eighteenth-century casts sit in the Metropolitan Museum; this one left the same moulds a century and a half later.

Type: Large porcelain bird figurine
Maker: Meissen (Staatliche Porzellan-Manufaktur), Germany
Era: 1891–1918, by the export mark and crossed swords
Subject: Golden oriole (Oriolus oriolus), model 820, after J. J. Kändler, refined by J. G. Ehder c. 1740–41
Modeling: Hand-assembled hard-paste porcelain; individually sculpted wing feathers; applied leaves and blossoms at the base; firing vent at centre
Painting: Polychrome enamels — golden-yellow body, black wings with amber feather-edging, red-orange beak, red eye, scaled claws
Size: ~10.5–11" / 27–28 cm tall; base ~3.5" / 9 cm across
Material: Hard-paste porcelain
Markings: Underglaze blue crossed swords with no cancellation strokes (first quality); blue "Germany" export stamp; impressed model number 820; impressed painter's number 290

Condition:
Very good antique condition, honest for its century and a quarter. Two of the applied leaves are broken, and the very tip of one talon has a chip of about a millimetre — on a figure of this age the applied work is always the first casualty. The bird itself, its enamel, the stump, and the remaining blossoms are intact and bright, with no cracks, no crazing, and no repairs. Small felt pads added by a previous owner lift away easily if preferred; please review all photos as part of the condition record.

Ships well padded and boxed from Canada; combined shipping available. US orders ship duty-paid — nothing extra to pay on delivery, and questions are always welcome.

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