Mystery Harlequin Figurine

Wondering please if anyone would be able to tell me any information about this figurine. Age, region, value or perhaps a possible maker? I'm guessing 19th century, continental maybe German. It looks like he was holding an instrument that's been lost, perhaps a violin or just a flute ib the right hand.

It looks a little like a Commedia dell'arte character due to the harlequin belly but I've looked through those and it really doesn't match any of them. So I'm not really sure how I would describe him, is he a jester?

Thanks

 

Pulcinella.

 

Ah! I believe you are right there!

He looks rather different to some pictures but the fat belly, hat and especially the arched humped back look like clear give-aways.

Thank you.

 

On many illustrations, it hold a wood sword or a cane, as on yours nothing seems to be broken, it can be held in the right hand and maintained by the left hand, it's made in the satyric english manner and with really good painted details but I don't like how the base is finished(this is a recent manner to make the base on repros)…

 

In taking a quick look at other Pulcinella porcelain figures, I find yours more interesting. Your guy is not wearing a Carnival mask, as some others do, and the modeler of yours accentuated his grotesqueness by giving him the large mouth that is another of his characteristics, which I do not see on the others the come up most readily. I haven't a clue about when this particular piece was made, but the design seems to me to follow older depictions that do not shy away from making him ugly and mean looking.

And looking at others, think Lecollectioneur is right about yours having been holding a stick or cudgel, which may have actually been wood.

 

Looking at the biscuit or porcelain figures I have in the same design, when the cane is porcelain too, it's soldered to the figurine, here you can make a new one in dark hard wood in my opinion.

 

That had been my thought too, that a replacement could be made and easily removed again if another owner did not want it.