In the 1750s, the Meissen porcelain factory produced a figurine based on a painting by Chardin (mediated through a print by Louis Surugue). It shows a woman sitting next to a desk, her shopping around her, writing it up in a domestic economy book, with a second notebook on her lap.
This project analyses several versions of this figurine to try to understand, first, the nature of this domestic scene; second, the appeal of this scene as an object for wealthy clients to put on their mantelpiece; and third, the technical and artistic implications of its reproduction in multiple copies that are similar but never the same.