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A rare pair of late 17th / early 18th century Arita porcelain models of Cockerel, Hen & Chick on a tree stump, mounted upon antique French Rococo pierced ormolu bases
 
Arita ware, figural Kakiemon type, Hizen province, Japan
Edo period (late 17th / early 18th century)
circa 1700
 
Each modelled with a large bushy tailed Bantam rooster with finely moulded feathers, picked out in black, green, red, aubergine and gilt enamels, a small hen roosting at his left side, a chick crouching beneath his right wing, all raised upon a moulded tree stump loosely and freely enamelled with splashes of black, green and aubergine washes.
 
The porcelain Arita, Japan circa 1700.
 
Mounted in France on antique gilt-bronze (ormolu) bases in the Louis XV taste; the ormolu 18th - 19th century.
 
These Japanese models demonstrate the creative involvement of the Parisian merchants, as discussed in Carolyn Sargentson's Luxury Markets: The Marchants Merciers of the Eighteenth Century (1996); the combination of Japanese porcelain and French gilt bronze being an assemblage of distinct elements in the French merchants stock. Incorporating Japanese and Chinese porcelain models of animals and birds into luxurious Objets Montés was highly fashionable in early 18th century Paris. According to Sargentson, Japanese porcelain models were noted as considerably more valuable than Chinese models, and significantly rarer. Birds of prey and exotic parrots were among the most used models of birds, with cockerel being much less common, making the present pair much more unusual. 
 
The porcelain models measuring 14.5cm high (5-3/4 inches); including the ormolu mounts measuring 17.8cm high (7 inches)