A Meissen Commedia dell'arte figure of dancing Harlequin from the Weissenfeld series circa 1744-47

modelled by Peter Reinicke and probably by Johann Joachim Kändler, dressed in a yellow shirt reserved with playing cards and a conical hat, standing before a tree stump on a circular mound base with his left knee and right arm raised and holding a slap-stick in his left hand, faint crossed swords mark in underglaze-blue.

There is some very minor rubbing to gilding along the edges of his conical hat and some minor and occasional chipping to the edges of his cuffs and to the blue florettes applied on the side of his knees, which have been painted over. There is a minuscule chip to the edge of one of the yellow florette on the base and another chip to the edge of one leaf.
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The Duke of Weissenfeld series, to which the present example belongs, is thoroughly discusssed by Meredith Chilton in her article, "Die Serie für den Herzog von Sachsen-Weißenfelds," in Commedia Dell'arte, Fest der Komödianten, pp. 25-30. As per Chilton, the series has been traditionally associated with Johann Adolf II, Duke of Sachsen-Weissenfelds, who may have commissioned it to commemorate his second marriage to Friedericke von Sachsen-Gotha in 1743. In April 1744, Reinicke's work records state: '1 Arlequin von gleicher Grösse angefangen' [Started 1 Harlequin of the same size], although it is not clear as to which of the two Harlequin models he is referring. In the same month Kändler's records indicate that he corrected a Harlequin figure: 'Einen Arlequin Ebenfalls zur Italienischen Comödie gehörig, corrigiert und zerschnitten und zum abformen gegeben' [Also corrected, cut up and sent to moulding a Harlequin figure belonging to the Italian Comedy]. 
Intended for the extravagant dessert table, these figures were immensely popular and copied throughout the rest of Europe and England, including at the Chelsea, Derby and Longton Hall factories.
A similar figure in the Collection of the Gardiner Museum, accession number G83.I.923, is illustrated in Chilton, ibid., p. 157, fig. 265. Similar figures were sold at Sotheby's London, March 2, 1994, lot 124; Sotheby's New York, November 1, 1997, lot 30 from the Collection of Mrs. Charles Allen and two examples from the Collection of Herr and Frau Dr. Marcel Nyfeller, at Christie's London, June 9, 1986, lots 57 and 58.