Porcelain Figurine From Höchst Passau Depicting A Flutist From The "turkish Orchestra" Series

Porcelain figurine from Höchst Passau depicting a flutist from the "Turkish Orchestra" series
Designed by Johann Peter Melchior (circa 1779)
Late 19th / Early 20th century

Height: 18 cm

The Höchst porcelain manufactory (in Hesse) is renowned for the wide variety of its figurines, created by numerous designers over the course of its fifty years of operation. These creations were often inspired by Meissen models, either replicating their forms or offering variations on them. However, some models were original creations based on drawings or engravings.
When the Höchst factory closed in 1796, the facility and its entire inventory were sold at auction on August 26, 1798.
In 1840, Daniel Ernst Müller acquired the old models to use them in his own fine white earthenware factory, established in 1827 in Aschaffenburg-Damm (Bavaria). These pieces served as models for the creation of new working plaster molds, while master molds made of terracotta were produced to preserve the original models.
Between 1840 and 1884, the factory produced copies of the famous Höchst figurines in fine white earthenware—sometimes with retouching—and, occasionally, in porcelain.
In 1886–1887, the molds were acquired by Franz Anton Mehlem, owner of a fine white earthenware factory established in 1755 in Poppelsdorf, near Bonn.
They were restored and reused to produce figurines in fine white earthenware, although these were never sold commercially.
In 1903, some 350 models were acquired by the Dressel, Kister & Cie porcelain manufactory in Passau (1853–1919); where they were retouched and used to produce porcelain figurines, likely until around 1919.
Almost all examples, whether from Aschaffenburg, Damm, or Passau, bore a wheel-shaped mark—the trademark of the Höchst factory—sometimes accompanied by the letter “D” or a bishop’s crozier (Passau).
In 1919, the company was sold and continued operations until its liquidation in 1936 under the name “Aelteste Volkstedter Porzellanfabrik AG, Zweigniederlassung Passau” (Oldest Volkstedt Porcelain Manufactory, Passau Branch).
In 1928, one year before Höchst was incorporated into the city of Frankfurt, the municipal authorities commissioned Volkstedter Porzellanfabrik AG to produce a complete series of new reproductions of all existing Höchst designs. Consisting of approximately 350 pieces, this collection of “reproductions of old Höchst designs” is still on display in the richly decorated rooms of the Bolongaro Palace in Frankfurt-Höchst and is preserved by the Historisches Museum Frankfurt (Frankfurt History Museum).
From 1937 to 1942, production continued under the name “Porzellanfabrik Passau” (Passau Porcelain Factory), but the company was destroyed and looted toward the end of World War II. It can be assumed that the production of these “reproductions of old Höchst designs” using the existing molds continued at the Porzellanfabrik Passau until the outbreak of the war.
Some of these molds ended up at the Oberhausmuseum in Passau; when the museum closed, they were sold to a private individual who, in turn, resold them to the Porzellanmanufaktur Frankenthal (Frankenthal Porcelain Manufactory). Their fate after the factory’s closure in 1950 remains a mystery.