Ernst Bohne & Söhne Porcelain Manufactory, A Pair of Beggars

porcelain, enamel paints, gilding,
minor losses of paint (right elbow of man) and plastic decoration (flowers on base);
H: 13 cm; W: 15 cm; D: 9 cm; signed in cobalt under-glaze: N under 7-pal crown.
Germany, Rudolstadt (Thuringia), early-1st quarter of the 20th century.
On a rectangular base with gold border, genre scene - a pair of beggars: a woman sitting on a stool with a cane, a cat on her lap and a sleeping cat at her feet, warms her hands over a crucible with embers standing in front of her; opposite on a stone sits an old man with an anklet, eating from a bowl held in his hand.
The porcelain figures and figural scenes with beggars fired at the Bohne & Söhne factory referred to the prints of Jacques Callot (1592-1635) and Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677); this theme was also taken up by other factories in Thuringia (including Triebner, Ernst & Eckert in Volkstedt).