Beschreibung:

'THE FOUR QUARTERS OF THE GLOBE': FOUR MASSIVE CHELSEA PORCELAIN FIGURES EMBLEMATIC OF EUROPE, AMERICA, AFRICA AND ASIA Circa 1758-60, red anchor marks, Africa apparently unmarked Each modelled as a child standing on a rocky flower-encrusted base, Europe as a girl, wearing a six-pointed gilt diadem and a jewel on her forehead, draped in a pink-lined blue and gilt flowered cloak and turquoise-lined yellow dress with trailing oriental flowers and blue strapped sandals, her left arm raised and holding a loop, standing beside a cornucopia of fruit, a banner, a scroll-moulded silvered and gilt helmet, a red-bound gilt-edged book and a musical score inscribed Allelujah , a set-square and batons between her feet; America as a blackamoor, wearing a feathered headdress, draped in a pale yellow-lined pink gilt-flowered cloak falling to his waist above a feathered chiton, a dark red and gilt scroll-moulded quiver suspended from his right shoulder on a turquoise strap, standing before a brown and black mottled crocodile curled about a tree-stump, two arrows between his feet; Africa as a blackamoor in elephant headdress, a string of red and a string of white beads around his neck, scantily draped in a turquoise-lined pink gilt-flowered cloak suspended from his right shoulder on a strap and fallen to his waist, holding a scorpion in his outstretched left hand, standing before a pink cornucopia filled with corn and entwined with two sinous serpents; Asia as a girl with a wreath of fruit and flowers in her hair, in a pale-blue-lined pink cloak with purple flowered gilt branches over a pale-yellow-lined robe joined by a gilt jewelled clasp over a white underdress with a gilt flowered girdle, holding a fruiting branch and flowers in her extended right hand and a gilt-flowered and scroll-moulded flaming baluster urn in the crook of her left arm, fruiting and flowering branches at her feet (damages and restoration) 30in. (76cm.), 30¾ in. (78cm.), 32in. (81.5 cm.) and 29¼in. (74.5cm.) high respectively (4)