BERLIN - KING'S PORCELA MANUFACTURE (KPM), Putto on a dolphin; from the Geburt der Schönheit table decoration ensemble (Tafelaufsatz)

white porcelain; height 21 cm; signed in cobalt under-glaze: scepter and impressions: 12 and dating impressions (postwar).
Berlin, Königliche Porzellan Manufaktur (KPM), model - Paul Scheurich (1883-1945), design 1939/40, postwar execution (1960s / 1970s).
Nude putto riding a dolphin; on the knee of the leg supported by the head of the fish supports a handful of reeds (ears?).
Figure from the 15-piece set Birth of Beauty for table decoration, inspired by the 1879 painting The Birth of Venus by William Adolph Bouguereau (1825-1905), which presents the mythology of the sea (figures of Venus, putti on shells, dolphins, hippocampi, tritons, nereids). A realization by one of the best 20th-century sculptors working in porcelain, it is the most important of those designed for the Berlin manufactory, with which the artist was associated since 1939. Scheurich had previously designed for Schwarzenburger Werkstätten für Porzellankunst and for Meissen (1920s-30s).