The menagerie of large-scale porcelain animals ordered for Augustus II's Japanese Palace in Dresden was one of the most ambitious ceramic undertakings of the eighteenth century. There was no precedent for producing animals of this scale in porcelain, and the numerous firing cracks on these two figures reflect the technical difficulty in both modeling and firing such large figures. Despite the minor technical flaws, which also include the bluish cast of the lion, the two figures and the series to which they belong reflect one of the greatest artistic achievements of Germany's Meissen factory, the first in Europe to produce true porcelain. With their acquisition in 1988, the Museum's superb holdings from Meissen were augmented by two of the finest surviving examples of eighteenth-century porcelain sculpture.
