These figures are very similar in style and attitude to a well-known group of children playing modeled by Laurentius Russinger, the chief modeler at Höchst from 1762 to 1767. A close variant of the group has been attributed to Johann Peter Melchior, Russinger's successor, with the suggestion that the two may have worked together briefly before Russinger's departure. Russinger was known for his sentimental models of children and charming pastorals adapted from French examples. Beautifully modeled in the smallest detail and delicately painted in soft, pastel colors, this group belongs to the miniature world of shepherds, hunters with their dogs, the commedia dell'arte, and beribboned courtiers created at Höchst during the 1750s and 1760s--the factory's most distinguished and marketable products. Porcelains were first produced at Höchst in 1750 in the faience factory founded four years earlier by two merchants from Frankfurt and by the Meissen painter Adam Friedrich von Lowenfinck, who served as artistic director. Beset by financial difficulties, the company was reorganized in 1765 and subsidized until 1774 by the Elector of Mainz, Emmerich Joseph. Pieces produced during this period are often marked, as is this one, with an electoral hat added to the factory's original wheel mark. After the factory closed in 1796, its inventory was auctioned and models put in storage. Many of the original models--including the one for this group of children--were purchased about 1840 by Daniel Ernst Muller and reproduced in earthenware at this pottery factory in Damm. Kathryn B. Hiesinger, from Guides to European Decorative Arts: Porcelain (1984), p. 22.