Tobacco Jar - Lot 42

Tobacco Jar 19th-century polychrome terracotta with a patina from use A pair of two determined-looking figures, hands on their hips and feet spread apart. The man, an English sailor with a pipe in his mouth and a hat with a wide ribbon on his head—the lapel and the medallion fastening his scarf adorned with inverted anchors—is of the same design, but more elaborately decorated and without a base, than the monochrome version listed in Horowitz under number 348 and labeled as an English piece. He is very often depicted in the world of tobacco culture, in ceramic as here or in polychrome sheet metal, such as the one in the Seita collection (lot 369 of the Piasa auction on September 18, 2009). As for the woman, she has the appearance of a feisty, gray-haired canteen worker with a cigar in the corner of her mouth. Since the name “Coinchon”* is engraved beneath the lid of each figure, we can confirm that this is a French piece. This helps us better understand the grotesque nature of this French depiction of a couple belonging to the detested British navy. These two figures, cast from the same mold, are part of a series yet to be discovered; however, a 17th-century lansquenet in armor and boots, smoking a very large pipe, was recently sold for 3,500 euros (including tax) by an auctioneer in Marseille. * This may refer to either Jacques Antoine Théodore Coinchon, a sculptor born in Moulins in 1814, who died in Paris in 1881, lived in Italy, and was a student of David d’Angers; or his own son and student, Albert, who died in 1871, ten years before his father. Repair to the pipe. Marks on the polychrome. H 31 cm