Description:

Royal Copenhagen 12415 Greenland girl 5.5" Inuit i national dress by Carl Martin-Hansen
The series of Danish national coastlines was without doubt one of Carl Martin-Hansen's greatest successes. In keeping with the dictates of the school of art to which he be1onged, he demanded that all the detail s in the regional costumes should be absolutely correct. They were copied from original s in the National and otter Danish Museums. As can be dearly observed from the close-up pictures, which follow, not a single characteristic detail was missed out. This artistic criterion could only be met because the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Manufactory had at its disposal a staff of craftsmen, which had inherited a tradition for meticulous painting technique _own the generations from the factory's first golden age in the l780s.

The link with 18th century traditions is also preserved here in another way. 42 of these figures formed part of a gift presented by the women of Denmark to King Christian X and Queen Alexandrine to mark their silver wedding in 1923. This gift consisted amongst otter items of 120 specially produced plates to go with the figurines, which were intended as a table decoration. The figurines represented typical costumes of the inhabitants of all the territories over which Christian X ruled, viz. Denmark, The Faeroe Islands and Greenland as well as Iceland which was in union with Denmark at the time, and Slesvig, the northern, Danish, part of which had voted to return to the mother country just three years before the Royal Silver Wedding.