> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://theparnassian.com/en/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# The Tailor Astride a Goat by Johann Joachim Kändler: A Rather Popular Subject in Meissen Porcelain of the 18th and 19th Centuries
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/portnoi-verkhom-na-kozle-avtorstva-ioganna-ioakhima-kendlera-dovolno-populiarnyi-siuzhet-meisenskogo-farfora-xviii-i-xix-vv/
- Published: 2023-06-26T10:51:38.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:36:21.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Aristocracy, Art, Museums, Mores

The Tailor Astride a Goat by Johann Joachim Kändler is a rather popular subject in Meissen porcelain of the 18th and 19th centuries. The tailor comes in various versions: sometimes the shears hang from a horn, sometimes they rest on the goat's head, sometimes they are in the tailor's hand, with two kids in a basket behind his back. Such figures were made not only at the Meissen manufactory but also at other factories in Germany and Russia: for example in Höchst, in white, or in the village of Verbilki in the Moscow Governorate, at the Gardner factory, where the last of them was a biscuit sculpture.

The sculptural group "The Tailor on a Goat" was inspired by a real historical figure: the tailor of Count von Brühl, the royal minister who headed the Meissen manufactory for twenty years. The tailor was distinguished by remarkable skill and talent, and the von Brühl family, whom he dressed, were turned out better than nearly anyone at the court of the Elector of Saxony, Augustus the Strong. The master, always splendidly dressed and thereby favourably distinguished from the other courtiers, could not of course fail to value his tailor's craftsmanship and, according to legend, once offered him the choice of his own reward. The tailor, who by then already enjoyed all manner of liberties and allowed himself a great deal, asked to be invited to the royal dinner. And the impudent request was granted.

The vainglorious tailor did indeed appear at the royal table. Only not in person, but in the form of the porcelain figure "The Tailor on a Goat", made by Kändler at the personal request of Heinrich von Brühl, who thus kept the promise he had given his workman and put the presumptuous artisan in his place.

The sculpture is represented in the collections of the Hermitage, the State Historical Museum, Peterhof, the Tver Art Gallery, the Nizhny Novgorod State Museum-Reserve and the Irkutsk Art Museum.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_9192@26-06-2023_13-51-38.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_9193@26-06-2023_13-51-38.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_9194@26-06-2023_13-51-38.jpg)