Jean d’Orlèans, comte de Dunois (1403-68), the French hero who was Jeanne d’Arc’s devoted follower and compagnon d’armes, spent much of his life combating the English. In post-revolutionary France Dunois was admired as much for his civic virtues as for his military prowess. The figure was intended to accompany a series of standing figures of medieval and Renaissance heroes.

It may seem surprising that George IV would acquire a figure of an anglophone Frenchman. However, the King was not without a sense of historical objectivity - ‘Un grand homme appartient à tous les peuples et à tous les siècles’ - and he assembled a veritable ‘Valhalla’ of great men from the past at Carlton House including French generals such as the marshals Vauban, Villars, Condé and Turenne, some of whom had won their spurs fighting the English.

The model can probably be identified in the registre des tourneurs, mouleurs et repareurs in an entry dated 31 March 1823 under Mascret’s name: ‘1 figure de Dunois 60 francs’. This version maybe that priced at 200 francs, placed in the sales’ room on 30 May 1823.

Text adapted from French Porcelain: In the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, London, 2009