Elephant, Johann Gottlieb Kirchner (modeller),  Meissen, 1731 (June). White china. H. 61 cm. PE 55. Porcelain Collection. © Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden 2013

he modeling of the elephant and rhinoceros (PE 56) means somehow the birth of the European large-scale sculpture in porcelain, and it was certainly Gottlieb Kirchner, who made his debut with it, although this can not be demonstrated through written sources. Since Kirchner had probably never seen a live elephant, he had to use in the modeling of an image template. Characteristic is especially the stocky body shape of the animal, to the short legs and frayed, leaf-shaped ears and the rib-like articulated trunk. The plastic more impressed by their size, as high artistic merit, because it came Kirchner especially important to convert the two-dimensional image template in the three-dimensionality of sculpture, to the desire of the king to meet in porcelain by an elephant.