Art Deco

Man with Serpent

Hand-Carved Wood Sculpture

Circa 1920s  

DIMENSIONS

Height: 23.5 inches                           Width: 14.5 inches                           Depth: 8.75inches 

ABOUT

Perhaps German, this wooden sculpture stands as a remarkable masterpiece, showcasing the sculptor’s extraordinary skill and attention to detail. It vividly portrays the anatomical proportions and muscular system of the male body with an exceptional level of accuracy, bringing life and vitality to the figure. The man is captured in a dynamic and dramatic pose, engaged in a fierce battle with a snake, his body twisting and straining with movement, emphasizing both strength and grace. The composition is circular, creating a harmonious flow that guides the viewer's eye around the piece, enhancing the sense of motion and energy. The aesthetic quality of the sculpture is refined and elegant, with every curve and contour thoughtfully crafted to convey beauty and power. The balance between realism and artistic stylization elevates this sculpture beyond mere representation, making it a striking and powerful expression of human and natural conflict.

$3,800

French Art Deco

Helene Sardeau

Jazz Singer

Bronze

1928

DIMENSIONS

Height: 9 in (22.86 cm)         Width: 6.25 in (15.88 cm)         Depth: 4.5 in (11.43 cm) 

ABOUT SCULPTURE

This handsome French Art Deco cast bronze sculpture of a jazz singer is signed and dated 1928; and has a mark from the Valsuani foundry in Paris. A cast of this sculpture was exhibited at the 1928 Salon d'Automne in Paris. 

HELEN SARDEAU (Belgian-American, 1899-1968) was a known sculptress studied in Paris, where in 1931, she married an American artist, George Biddle, and moved to New York City; where she studied under Mahonri Young (American 1877-1957). Sardeau's first major commission was ‘Slave’ - a six foot limestone African-American man, created for the sculpture garden in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia.

$5,700

French Art Deco

Paul Piel

Snake Charmer

Bronze & Marble

1925

DIMENSIONS

Height: 10.75 inches (27.31 cm)         Width: 3 inches (7.62 cm)         Depth: 5.5 inches (13.97 cm)

ABOUT

This elegant French Art Deco bronze sculpture of an erotic female snake charmer is mage of bronze and mounted on a red veined marble base. The base is incised with Egyptian and Greek Revival elements that were in high-style during the 1920’s Art Deco period in Europe.  The sculpture is signed 'Paul Piel' and dated 1925 in the lower part of the base. A part of an old Christie's label can be found on the bottom.

$3,300

Art Deco

Amedeo Gennarelli

Torso

Carved Granite

Circa 1940 

DIMENSIONS

Height: 15.5 inches (39.37 cm)         Width: 8 inches (20.32 cm)         Depth: 6 inches (15.24 cm) 

ABOUT

This expressive hand-carved and highly polished grey-and-pink granite sculpture is mounted on a square black stone base with the incised signature atop, ‘A. Gennarelli’. 

AMEDEO GENNARELLI (Italian/French, 1881–1943) a/k/a Jean Ortis was a French/Italian sculptor. He was born in 1881 in Naples, Italy, but immigrated to Paris in 1913 and worked there; exhibiting at numerous Salons of the Societe des Artistes Francais through the years to come. He is known for his work in the art deco style and for his depictions of the female nudes; working in bronze, stone, terra-cotta and wood. Amedeo Gennarelli died in Paris in 1943.

$4,000

American Art Deco

Nude Female

Wrought Iron Sculpture

ca. 1920’s

DIMENSIONS

Height: 13 inches                  Width: 4 inches                  Depth: 4 inches 

ABOUT

Designed in a Cubist style, this graceful Art Deco iron sculpture on an original painted wood base depicts a full-length slender woman with bare breasts and a stylized hairstyle, draped in a cape with beautifully flowing folds. Original painted wooden base. Unsigned.

$1,750

Art Deco

Heinrich Karl Scholz

Declaration of Love

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

Austria, 1919

DIMENSIONS

Height: 13.75 inches                   Width: 6.75 inches                  Depth: 4.75 inches 

ABOUT

This Art Deco brown-patinated bronze sculpture, stunning with its grace and fine lines, was created by the famous Austrian sculpture Heinrich Karl Scholz in 1919; and depicts an unusually dynamic and expressive composition of a scene of declaration of love between a slender nude female and a flexible as if gutta-percha, Harlequin. 

HEIRICH KARL SCHOLZ (Austrian, 1880-1937) was born in Bohemia, but lived and worked as a sculptor and medalist in Wien (Vienna). He first was trained in porcelain processing and modeling at the School of Applied Arts in Haindorf and at the State School of Applied Arts in Reichenberg, but he later studied sculpturing at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wien. During World War I, Scholz was commissioned with the planning and building of 34 war cemeteries and memorials in Galicia. In 1920, he became a member of the Künstlerhaus Wien and in 1936 was advanced to vice-president. Scholz created numerous small statuettes and medals that were reproduced as figurines or bronze casts even years after his death.

$3,800

Art Deco

Jules Werson

Nude Female Dancer

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

Belgium, circa 1920  

DIMENSIONS

Height: 18 inches            Width: 7 inches            Depth: 3.75 inches 

ABOUT

This sculpture in the “nu” genre, so popular in the Art Deco era, was created by the famous Belgian sculptor Jules Werson in the 1920s. Depicted in his characteristic manner, the nude exotic dancer, frozen in the culminating pose of her dance, still hypnotizes the viewer with her exciting forms and unique body lines. 

MARKINGS & DETAILS

The sculpture is signed ‘J. Werson’ on the plinth. The original patina is in excellent condition. 

JULES WERSON (1884 – 1967) was born in Malmédy, a city in the province of Liège, Belgium, in 1884. He was a sculptor, medalist and graphic artist. After studying in Düsseldorf, Munich, Brussels and Paris; he settled in Gilching, Upper Bavaria in Germany, where he died in 1967.

sold

French Art Deco

Édouard-Marcel Sandoz

PARROT

Cubist Sculpture in Carved Malachite SCULPTURE

Circa 1920

DIMENSIONS

Height: 5.75 inches            Width: 3-15/16 inches            Depth: 1-15/16 inches 

DETAILS

Inscribed ‘E.M. Sandoz’ on base 

CONDITION

There is a small chip on top of left eye that can be easily restored. Otherwise, the sculpture is in good antique condition consistent with age and use.   

ABOUT

This exquisite statuette of a parrot hand-carved from a solid piece of malachite is a remarkable sculptural work in the cubist style that was created by Édouard-Marcel Sandoz in the early 1920s. As many of other works by this famous sculptor during that period in Paris; this precious statuette was made under the influence of a then-new trend in art – cubism, and the outstanding masterpieces by its creators, Braque and Picasso. 

ÉDOUARD-MARCEL SANDOZ (1881-1971) was a Swiss animalier sculptor and painter. Sandoz was a son of the entrepreneur Édpuard Constant Sandoz, the co-founder of the chemical and later pharmaceutical company Sandoz, and the brother of the author Maurice-Yves Sandoz. In 1923, he joined the board of directors of Sandoz; in 1941 he took over the position of CEO of the company in France. After his father's death in 1928, Edouard Marcel inherited his country estate, LeDenantou in Lausanne, which he transformed into a workshop. In the 1920s he developed a light projection technique for theater stages. In 1935, he was one of the founding partners of the photographic paper manufacturer Tellko S.A. in Freiburg. He studied from 1900 to 1903 at the Haute école d'arts appliqués de Genève and from 1904 to 1907 at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris with the sculptors Antonine Mercie and Jean-Antonine Injalbert. In 1909, he married Adèle Passavant, with whom he settled in the Montparnasse district of Paris in 1910. 

Sandoz created almost 1800 sculptures and over 200 porcelain models. In addition to creating human figures, he mainly worked as an animal sculptor, making his objects from materials such as stone, onyx, porcelain, semi-precious stones, bronze and precious metals. He participated in numerous exhibitions, including the 1906 Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and the 1911 Salon of the Société des Artistes Décorateurs. During the First World War, he turned to ceramics and designed models for the porcelain manufacturers Haviland & Co. (Limoges), Sevres, and Langenthal. He made numerous small figures, some in Art Nouveau style, others borrowed from Cubism, and others as Art Deco statuettes. His metal figures were mostly handcrafted by the Susse Freres foundry. 

As a painter, he mainly depicted flowers and landscapes. In 1921, he travelled to North Africa and painted watercolors for folding brochures. In 1933, he founded the Société Française des Animaliers (French Society of Animal Sculptors). In 1937, he showed his works in the pavilion of the Société des Artistes Décorateurs at the World Exhibition in Paris. In 1947, he was elected a member of the Paris Academie des Beaux-Arts. The University of Lausanne awarded him an honorary doctorate in geology and botany in 1959. He was appointed Commander of the Legion of Honour and Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

$9,500

Art Deco

Soccer Player

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

Germany, ca. 1930’s 

DIMENSIONS

Height: 9.5 inches            Width: 6.75 inches            Depth: 2.75 inches 

ABOUT

A rare, laconic, dynamic and expressive collectible tabletop sculpture. The tense figure of a football player with clenched fists, hitting the ball at this moment, is masterfully made of black patinated bronze in a figurative-cubist manner and fully reflects the characteristic aesthetic perception of the beautiful forms and lines of the Art Deco era. Original wooden plinth and fittings.

$2,800

Austrian Art Deco

Karl Hagenauer

Tennis Players

A Pair of Miniature Sculptures

Vienna, ca. 1920s

DIMENSIONS

MALE TENNIS PLAYER                       FEMALE TENNIS PLAYER

Height: 3-5/8 inches                         Height: 3.5 inches

Width: 2-3/4 inches                          Width: 1.5 inch

Depth: 1 inch                                    Depth: 1.25 inches

KARL HAGENAUER (Austrian, 1898–1956) was an influential Austrian designer in the Art Deco style. Karl Hagenauer founded what became the Werkstätte Hagenauer Wien in 1898. His oldest son, Karl, who would eventually assume leadership of the family business, enrolled at the Vienna School of Applied Arts at age eleven. There he studied with Josef Hoffmann and Oscar Strnad and created designs for the Wiener Werstatte art collective. After wartime service in the infantry, he resumed his training and qualified as an architect. He joined the family business in 1919. 

Hagenauer was responsive to the change in public taste influenced by the popularity of the Vienna Secession. His stylized animals and whimsical creatures handcrafted in brass had broad appeal in domestic and American markets. Some were useful, such as mirrors, cigar cutters, ashtrays, candlesticks, bookends, hood ornaments and lamp bases. Other larger sculptures in wood and metal (such as the iconic Josephine Baker in the collection of the Casa Lis Art Nouveau and Art Deco Museum in Salamanca) were purely decorative. 

Hagenauer's work was presented at the 1925 Paris Exposition, where he won a bronze and a silver medal.

He designed the company’s trademark “wHw” (for Werkstätte Hagenauer Wien) and registered it in 1927. The first catalogue to use the trademark dates to 1928,[9] the year his father died and Hagenauer assumed leadership of the business. While Hagenauer was the principal designer of everyday objects (and some sculptures), his younger brother Franz specialized in sculpture. The company later also produced furniture, chiefly designed by Julius Jirasek.

Hagenauer's work found an avid American market partly through the efforts of New York gallery owner Rena Rosenthal, who featured the Josephine Baker sculpture in a 1935 window display. Rosenthal's patronage was critical to the post-war success of the Werkstätte Hagenauer; the hostilities caused a delay of several years in her payment for a last container of products shipped in 1938 and the subsequent change in exchange rate was very advantageous to the Austrian craftsman, supporting rebuilding efforts.

1923 Prima Mostra Biennale Internazionale delle Arti Decorative, Monza (Diploma)

1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, Paris (Silver and Bronze medal)

1927 World's Fair, Philadelphia (Gold medal)

1929 International Exhibition, Barcelona[

1930 Triennale, Monza

1934 Austrian State Prize

1937 World Fair, Paris (Grand Prix)

1951 Triennale, Milan (two Gold medals and a Silver medal) 

sold

Austrian Art Deco

Rena Rosenthal

(possibly, by Hagenauer for Rena Rosenthal)

Madonna and Child

Carved Ebonized Wood & Silvered Metal

ca. 1920’s

MATERIALS

Ebonized wood and silvered metal. 

MARKINGS

Stamped with “Made in Austria” and "RENA" marks. 

DIMENSIONS

Height: 6.25 inches Width: 4.25 inches Depth: 2.5 inches 

ABOUT SCULPTURE

Quite extraordinary in its design, craftsmanship and selection of materials, this outstanding Art Deco tabletop sculpture of the Madonna and Child was most likely made in the Vienna studio of Karl Hagenauer for the New York Rena Rosenthal Gallery, who sold modern home accessories made in Germany and Austria. She was the main retailer for Hagenauer’s creations in America from 1920’s to the late 1950’s. 

RENA ROSENTHAL (1880–1966) was a trend-setting American retailer and businesswoman. Known principally for her exclusive Madison Avenue retail shop in New York City, she was an influential arbiter of taste and fashion in the interior decorating world, particularly during the introduction of modernism to North America.

Born Rena Kahn in New York City, Rena Rosenthal was the oldest child of Jacob (Jacques) and Eugenie Kahn and sister of architect Ely Jacques Kahn. Rena Rosenthal was a promoter of applied arts in the modernist style whose patronage helped launch the careers of such noted designers as Donald Deskey, Tommi Parzinger, Ernst Schwadron and Russel Wright.

She established the Austrian Workshop, later Rena Rosenthal Studio and then Rena Rosenthal Gallery. She retailed exclusive handcrafted glass, porcelain, fabric, metal and wood objects for home adornment through her shop at 520 (later 438) Madison Avenue. Many of these items were sourced in her father's and husband's native Austria; her shop distributed wares from the Wiener Werkstatte and from the Viennese designer Karl Hagenauer. She introduced the work of Austrian enamel artist Mizi Otten to North America, and was an early promoter of English potter and painter T. S. Haile. 

She loaned German pottery and Austrian metalwork items to the Worchester Art Museum’s third annual exhibit of modern decorative arts, in 1929.

While she is known now principally for her exclusive retail shop (regular advertisements were seen in House & Garden and Harpers magazines), her business was listed over the years in New York directories under "Painters & Decorators" and "Gift Shops", and in Chicago under "Art Goods."

Rena Rosenthal was an influential arbiter of taste and fashion in the interior decorating world, particularly during the introduction of modernism to North America. She handled art works that ended up in collections of notable individuals like Geoffrey Beene and institutions such as the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.

$1,750

Austrian Art Deco

Vide-Poche

Bronze and Green Agate

ca. 1920s

ABOUT

Vide Poche (meaning 'empty pocket' in French) is intended to be a trinket tray used for holding the contents of your pockets, or equally as a beautiful object with which to decorate your home. The base of this particular Austrian Art Deco era vide-poche in a complicated geometrical shape is made of green agate; and the remarkably elegant handle in form of a dancer for carrying this item from place to place is made of black patinated bronze. 

DIMENSIONS

Height: 5-1/8 inches Width: 6.75 inches Depth: 8.75 inches

$950

American Art Deco

A Nude Woman Holding a Sea Shell

Bronze Sculpture on Chromed Metal Base

ca. 1920s

ABOUT

A light, graceful female figure, as if floating in the air, with hair fluttering in the wind, trying not to spill, carefully carries in front of her a large sea shell filled with water. Probably, this most unusual bronze sculpture was part of a wall or furniture embellishment but later was tastefully mounted on a cube-shaped chromed metal pedestal. Without any doubt, this sculpture will compliment an interior of many styles, from Art Deco to contemporary. 

DIMENSIONS

Height: 19.5 inches Width: 6 inches Depth: 7.5 inches

$4,200

Dutch Art Deco 

Hendrik Scholter

Capitalist and Proletarian

Industrial Figural Group

Patinated Bronze

Amsterdam, ca. 1930s

DIMENSIONS         Height: 9.5 inches         Width: 6.5 inches         Depth: 3.75 inches

MARKINGS            Brown-patinated bronze, inscribed on base: H. Scholter (Dutch, 20th Century)

$2,400

ART DECO

ATTRIBUTED TO

Vally Wiethelthier

Drunken Sailor

Ceramic Figurine

ca. 1925

ABOUT

This funny, humorous tabletop ceramic figurine depicts a drunken sailor lying on his back. Around his neck is a metal ring with an anchor on it.

MARKINGS         Signed on the left buttock: "Italy".

DIMENSIONS         Height: 2.5 inches         Width: 2 inches         Depth: 3.5 inches

VALERIE “VALLY” WIESELTHIER (Austrian-American, 1895 – 1945) was an outstanding ceramic artist. She was born to a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria. Her father, Wilhelm Wieselthier was a lawyer. Valluy attended theWiener Frauenacademie in Vienna from 1912 to 1914 and studied at the Vienna School of Applied Arts with Rosalinda Rothhansl, Kolo Moser, Jodef Hoffmann and Michael Powolny from 1914 to 1920. In addition, she worked as an auxiliary nurse during the First World War. From 1917 to 1922, she worked for the Wiener Werkstatte. From 1922 to 1927, she ran her own ceramic workshop in cooperation with the Augarten porcelain factory, which was newly founded in 1923, but also with other companies such as Friedrich Goldschider, Gmundner Keramik and Lobmeyr. Her expressive and humorous porcelain figures attracted attention at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et industriels modern in Paris in 1925 and are considered typical examples of the Art Deco style style. From 1928, the artist increasingly moved her center of life to the United States. She went to the International Exhibition of Ceramic Art in New York City in October 1928. In 1933, she moved to Chicago with Paul Lester Wiener and worked as a designer for the Contempora Group and the Sebring Pottery Company. Her extensive use of lead glazes and the potential effect of lead poisoning on her mental and physical health have not been evaluated, nonetheless. She died on September 1, 1945 of stomach cancer in a New York hospital. Vally Wieselthier’s work is held by many museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Arts in New York City of Arts and the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria.

$1,200

Austrian Art Deco

Vide Poche with Hound Dog

Patinated Bronze and Green Onyx

Vienna, ca. 1920s

ABOUT

A vide poche—French for empty pockets—is a valet tray or empty bowl used to collect change, keys, and daily miscellany. This unique object is created during the Art Deco era (ca. 1920s) in Vienna. The vide poche itself is made in the form of a spherical recess in a trapezoidal piece of green agate, which at the same time is a support for a hound dog in a jump, serving as a stylized handle for convenient carrying the object from place to place.

DIMENSIONS:

Height: 4 inches         Width: 6 inches         Depth: 8 inches

$1,200

French Art Deco

Attributed to

Alfred Dagnet

Triangular Flower Vase with Insert

Hammered Copper, Brass Repose, Art Glass Cabuchones

Paris, ca. 1920s

Alfred Louis-Achille DAGUET (French, 1875-1942) was a French craftsman and metal smith, working in metal at the turn of the 20th century, and who specialized in repoussé copper panels applied to hinged boxes, mantel clocks, and other exquisite objects. He was a pupil of Jean Leon Gerome, and lived in Paris until 1910. His delicately rendered images of flowers, birds, and sea are enriched with colorful cabochons. Daguet's life is relatively unknown. His atelier was located above Siegfried Bing's famous showroom, Maison de l'Art Nouveau, that displayed his works as well as those by Louis Comfort Tiffany and numerous other Art Nouveau artists, such as Clément Massier, Eugène Gaillard and Georges de Feure. Bing was a major proponent of the Art Nouveau movement and his pavilion at the Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris signified to the world the importance of this new style. Daguet’s work was exhibited at the Société des Artistes Français in 1903 and 1904, and he participated in the 1926 exhibition “Le Cuivre et le Bronze moderne” at the Galliera Museum. There, Daguet presented works bearing new forms – namely, circular disks of steel and bronze. Apart from this late exhibition, his best-known work is from before 1910. Famed actress and Art Nouveau collector Sarah Bernhardt owned pieces designed by Daguet.  

DIMENSIONS:

Height: 15.25 inches Width: 4.25 inches Depth: 2.25 inches

$2,200

American Art Deco

Joseph C. Motto

Female Nude

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

ca. 1920s

ABOUT

This wonderful sculpture in patinated bronze on an original black granite base depicting a nude young woman emerging from the water was created by Joseph C. Motto (American, 1891-1965) around 1920 and is a reference example of figurative sculpture from the American Art Deco era.

MARKINGS

Inscription on the bottom of the right leg: J.C. Motto

DIMENSIONS

Height: 12 inches Width: 10 inches Depth: 4.5 inches

SOLD

American Art Deco

Head Bust of a Young Boy

Carved Ebonized Wood

ca. 1940s

ABOUT SCULPTURE

This wonderful sculptural and portrait work was certainly created by a master sculptor, although not signed by the author. The face of this typical all-American boy, as if familiar to everyone, is distinguished by a special emotional intensity, expressed in the seriousness of his gaze and in tightly compressed lips. This is what makes this sculpture a real portrait, reflecting the internal psychological state of the model. 

DIMENSIONS

Height: 14.5 inches Width: 7 inches Depth: 9 inches

$2,400

American Cubist Art Deco

David Parsons

Lovers

Carved Wood Sculpture

1939

ABOUT

A completely unusual composition, the mysteriousness of the action of models, the choice of material, the hardness of the master's hand read in every line of the sculpture - this is the combination of artistic elements that makes this sculpture a real work of art.

MARKINGS

Inscription in reverse, bottom: ‘David G. Parsons 1939’ 

DIMENSIONS

Height: 24 inches Width: 9 inches Depth: 7.5 inches

sold

Austrian Expressionism

Attributed to:

Vally Wieselthier

Ceramic Sculptural Vase

ca. 1920 

DIMENSIONS         Height: 13.25 inches         Width: 10.5 inches         Depth: 8.75 inches 

Although unsigned, this magnificent Austrian expressionist art ceramic sculptural vase with three receptacles is attributed to Vally Wieselthier for Wiener Werkstatte, ca. 1920. 

Valerie "Vally" Wieselthier (Austrian-American, 1895 – 1945) was an outstanding ceramic artist. She was born to a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria. Her father, Wilhelm Wieselthier was a lawyer. Valluy attended theWiener Frauenacademie in Vienna from 1912 to 1914 and studied at the Vienna School of Applied Arts with Rosalinda Rothhansl, Kolo Moser, Jodef Hoffmann and Michael Powolny from 1914 to 1920. In addition, she worked as an auxiliary nurse during the First World War.  

From 1917 to 1922, she worked for the Wiener Werkstatte. From 1922 to 1927, she ran her own ceramic workshop in cooperation with the Augarten porcelain factory, which was newly founded in 1923, but also with other companies such as Friedrich Goldschider, Gmundner Keramik and Lobmeyr.  

Her expressive and humorous porcelain figures attracted attention at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et industriels modern in Paris in 1925 and are considered typical examples of the Art Deco style style. From 1928, the artist increasingly moved her center of life to the United States. She went to the International Exhibition of Ceramic Art in New York City in October 1928. In 1933, she moved to Chicago with Paul Lester Wiener and worked as a designer for the Contempora Group and the Sebring Pottery Company. Her extensive use of lead glazes and the potential effect of lead poisoning on her mental and physical health have not been evaluated, nonetheless. She died on September 1, 1945 of stomach cancer in a New York hospital. 

Vally Wieselthier’s work is held by many museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Arts in New York City of Arts and the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria.

$7,800

French Art Deco

IN THE MANNER OF THE LES NABIS SCHOOL

Lounging Nude Female

Carved Wood Sculpture

ca. 1930s

DIMENSIONS       Height: 14.5 inches         Width: 19.75 inches         Depth: 7.75 inches 

ABOUT SCULPTURE

This sculpture of a female nude was created by an unknown sculptor in the manner of the popular modernist movement in French art of the very end of the 19th century, Les Nabis, achieving a very peculiar stylistic symbiosis of modernism and Art Deco. Les Nabis were a group of young French artists active in Paris from 1888 until 1900, who played a large part in the transition from impressionism and academic art to abstract art, symbolism and the other early movements of modernism. The members included Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Paul Ranson, Edouard Vuillard, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Felix Valloton, Paul serusier and Auguste Cazalis. Most were students at the Academie Julian in Paris in the late 1880s. The artists shared a common admiration for Paul Gauguin and Paul Sezanne and a determination to renew the art of painting, but varied greatly in their individual styles. They believed that a work of art was not a depiction of nature, but a synthesis of metaphors and symbols created by the artist. In 1900, the artists held their final exhibition and went their separate ways.

SOLD

Mid-Century Modern

After The Thinker

Carved Wood Sculpture

ca. 1960s 

DIMENSIONS                      Height: 12 inches         Width: 4.5 inches         Depth: 6.5 inches 

Permanently exhibited at the Musee Rodin in Paris, ‘The Thinker’ (French: Le Penseur), the original Auguste Rodin’s bronze sculpture of a heroic proportions depicts a nude male figure sitting on a rock, in the pose of deep thought and contemplation. This modern interpretation of the world-known masterpiece of a brilliant sculptor to a large extent resembles the original that inspired the contemporary artist. However, upon closer inspection, it turns out that this is a completely different work in conception, reflecting despair and suffering rather than philosophical reflections.

$2,200

Austrian Art Deco

Sier Kunst

Bull

Wood & Brass Sculpture in Haguenauer Manner

ca. 1930 

DETAILS                               Marked ‘SK’ in a triangle for Sier Kunst and ‘Made In Austria’.

DIMENSIONS                      Height: 5-7/8 inches         Width: 11.25 inches         Depth: 3.5 inches 

ABOUT SCULPTURE

Art Deco wood and brass sculpture featuring a carved wood body of the bull with brass horns and tail, mounted to a brass base.  The sculpture is reminiscent of the style and quality made by Hagenauer.

$6,500

American Art Deco

Nude Kneeling Woman

Carved Slate Sculpture

ca. 1920 

DETAILS                Mounted on original marble base. Apparently unsigned, ca. 1920

DIMENSIONS       Height: 19 inches         Width: 12 inches         Depth: 4 inches         Base: 1 x 10.5 x 6 inches

$5,200

American Art Deco

Alexandre Zeitlin

Faerie

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

ca. 1920 

DETAILS                   Signed by the author and stamped with Roman Bronze Works Foundry NYC stamp.

DIMENSIONS          Height: 14.5 inches         Width: 6.5 inches         Depth: 9inches 

ABOUT THE SCULPTURE

Made of black patinated bronze, the fairy literally floats in the air thanks to a wonderful composition using a huge light scarf fluttering in the wind. 

ABOUT THE SCULPTOR

Alexandre Zeitlin (French/American, 1872 - 1946) was an outstanding sculptor known for his portrait busts. Alexander Zeitlin was born in Tiflis, Georgia (Russian Empire), in 1872. He held his first art exhibition in his hometown in his early teens. At first, the novice sculptor studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts (1890–1894), where his portrait busts of Archduke Otto were noted. 

He then studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Zeitlin's ‘Despair’ statue and a portrait bust of the opera singer Jeanne Hatto were among the first to receive public recognition. He became known for his portrait busts. Zeitlin received the Ordre des Palmes académiques (1903) for the busts of Camille Flammarion, and was appointed public teaching officer (1907) for his statue of a senator. 

Zeitlin worked in Paris for over 20 years. In 1915, he moved to New York City, where he remained for the rest of his life. He died at the age of 73 at the Knickerbocker Hospital on March 4, 1946. Zeitlin had a wife, Sophie. One of his two brothers, Lev, was a famous conductor at the Moscow Conservatory. 

Works by Alexander Zeitlin are in numerous collections around the world, including the United States, France and Russia. One of his most famous portrait busts is that of Edward VII, then Prince of Wales. It is noteworthy that this famous sculptural work of the monarch was made by the sculptor long before the coronation.

$2,500

Italian Art Deco

Claudio Botta

Salome

Patinated Bronze

ca. 1923

DETAILS                 Signed on base.

DIMENSIONS         Height: 10.25inches         Width: 7 inches         Depth: 14.5 inches

 ABOUT THE ARTIST

Claudio Botta (Italian, 1891–1958) was an Italian sculptor and painter. Son of Battista Botta and Maria Martinelli, from 10 to 14 he works as an apprentice in a delicatessen, while from 14 to 18 he joins his father who emigrated to New York where he tries various trades without learning, as he himself would have confessed, not even one. In 1909 he returned to Italy and settled in Brescia, working in the day at the Piccola Speed ​​train station and studying drawing and sculpture by himself in the evening. After a few years he manages to enter the workshop of the sculptor Achille Regosa, dedicating himself more continuously to art but living "on the bill, passion and sacrifice". He then moved to Milan for a few years, where he lives as a bohemian selling his statuettes on the street.

Back in Brescia, he devoted himself completely to the study of art under the protection of the sculptor Domenico Ghidoni. The first work of this period is Little Belgium, followed by the Sleeping Child and the busts of the bishops Giacomo Maria Corna Pellegrini Spandre and Giacinto Gaggia. After the First World War, he won the competition for the construction of the bust of Cesare Battisti to be placed at the foot of the Castle of Brescia, which was then canceled, repeated and won again by him. He received the first prize as the best work at the trade union exhibition in Brescia, the second prize in the national competition for the monument to Guglielmo Oberdan and in the competition for the monument to Edmondo De Amicis of Imperia, fifth in the competition for the Redeemer of Bienno. Instead, he wins the first prize at the Universal Exposition in Brussels with the work Maternity.

Among the numerous exhibitions of his works, we remember those at the Venice Biennale, the Milan Triennale, Turin, Florence, Rome and in Fiume. According to the critic Bianca Spataro, Botta "remained faithful to his ideal of simple and human truth throughout his life, without allowing himself to be attracted by the most advanced and controversial forms of contemporary art" even though his work does not lack a taste for symbolism.

Claudio Botta was also a painter "rich in personality, of in-depth examination both in city visions and in portraits with a broad and summary stroke". A Street in Brescia is dedicated to Claudio Botta.

$4,800

American Art Deco

Fred Press

Bust of a Young Faun

Painted Plaster

ca. 1930s 

DETAILS                Signed ‘Fred Press’ on back

DIMENSIONS        Height: 12.75 inches         Width: 4.5 inches         Depth: 4.5 inches 

FRED PRESS (American, 1919 – 2012) was born to Samuel and Rose Press, who emigrated from Russia in the early 1900’s. He was the fourth of five children. He was married to Alice Bernadette for over 60 years and they had three children, David, Peter and Christopher.

 At an early age Fred showed his sculpting prowess as the Ivory Soap contest winner in the early 1930’s. During his contemporary stage, he created numerous sculptures with bold design choices and unique subject matter.  Fred’s sculptures reflect both historically significant figures and time periods but he also showed a more fanciful side with sculptures depicting mythical folklore using the likeness of some of his relatives.  His subject matter also reflected the people and cultures he came into contact with while a member of the Sixth Air Force Division stationed in the Panama Canal Zone during the Second World War.  Many of his sculptures evolved from his drawings and sketches with several pieces having existing paintings and drawings that reflect similar themes.  His sculpting artistry culminated in being commissioned to create two bronze reliefs that were cast in 1992 and are part of the United States Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C.

As a teenager, he won the Proctor and Gamble Soap Sculpture annual awards for four years in the 1930’s. He studied, and later taught at the Vesper George School of Art in Boston. He was known primarily for his sculptures that were reproduced and distributed by Contemporary Arts, Inc. founded in the late 1930’s by him and his brother. 

His paintings have exhibited in many one-man shows and group competitions bringing critical acclaim and prizes leading to his paintings being acquired by private collections as well as at notable institutions such as Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Worcester Art Museum and others. One of his sculptures won first prize at a competition at the Delgado Museum of Art in New Orleans. In the 1990’s, he was commissioned by the United States Navy to create two of the 24 bronze reliefs at the Naval Memorial in Washington, DC, where they are on display. 

Early in the 1950’s, he moved to New York City and for the next three decades, as chief designer and executive Vice President of Rubel and Company, revolutionized the giftware industry on New York’s Fifth Avenue. The Museum of Modern Art, NY awarded him a good design award for his numerous multi-media products.

During the Second World War he was a member of the Sixth Air Force stationed in the Panama Canal Zone and he rose to the rank of Tech Sgt. as the Managing Editor of the Caribbean Breeze, the official publication of the group. This assignment resulted in writing many articles to help educate the soldiers to the surrounding area’s culture and history. Much of the knowledge gained during this time was used later as subjects of paintings and sculptures.  He also later wrote articles for the Christian Science Monitor. In 1962 he wrote “Sculpture at your Fingertips” and in the 2000’s wrote Remembering The Caribbean Breeze and John Paul Jones.  As part of his literary contributions were illustrations for a number of books.

Fred Press died on August 3, 2012 at the age of 92.

$1,900

American Modernism

A Pair of Nude Males

Ebonized Hand-Carved Wood Sculpture

Ca. 1940s

DIMENSIONS

Height: 25 inches         Width: 9 inches         Depth: 5 inches 

ABOUT SCULPTURE

This homoerotic ebonized hand-carved wood sculpture of a pair of nude males, the older one supporting the falling down body of the youth, was created by an anonymous artist circa 1940s in the USA.

$4,800

German Jugenstil

Richard Bauroth

Bathers

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

ca. 1919

MARKINGS

Signed by the artist and dated 1919. 

DIMENSIONS

Height: 6.25 inches         Width: 8.25 inches         Depth: 4 inches 

ABOUT ARTIST

Richard Bauroth (German, 1884-?) was active/lived in Germany. German sculptor, Richard Bauroth studied in Munich under Professor Adolf von Hildebrand.

$3,500

American Art Deco

The Three Graces

Wall Plaque

Patinated Bronze and Ebonized Wood

ca. 1920 

DIMENSIONS

Height: 17.25 inches         Width: 15.5 inches         Depth: 1 inch 

ABOUT THE WALL PLAQUE

The plot of this work was based on the famous neoclassical sculpture by Antonio Canova "The Three Graces", in marble, of the mythological three Charities, daughters of Zeus – identified on some engravings of the statue as Euphrosyne, Aglaea and Thalia – who were said to represent youth/beauty (Thalia), mirth (Euphrosyne), and elegance (Aglaea). As such, they have also served as subjects for historical artists including Sandro Botichelli, Bertel Thorvaldsen and others. Although unsigned, this is certainly the work of a true master-sculptor, who presented us with a version of this famous story in his interpretation very consonant with the spirit and aesthetics of the American Art Deco era in which he lived and worked.

sold

Head of a Jazzman

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

USA, ca. 1940s

DIMENSIONS

Height:  10 inches         Width:  7 inches         Depth:  11 inches 

ABOUT SCULPTURE

This remarkable portrait bust is in all likelihood a privately commissioned sculpture from around 1940s. Despite the fact that the sculpture is not signed, it is certainly an excellent example of American expressive sculpture of that period and was made by a talented artist who managed to accurately convey not only the bright appearance, but also the character of the person.

$7,500

AmErican Art Deco

Allan Clark

The King's Temptress

Carved and Polychromed Mahogany

USA, ca. 1926/27

 DIMENSIONS Height: 21.75 inches Width: 13.5 inches Depth: 8 inches

ABOUT SCULPTURE This unusual colorful sculpture depicts a very beautiful Balinese woman with a dance crown on her head, looking straight at the viewer. Squinted eyes and slightly swollen lips make her expression sensual and unequivocally inviting. Judging by the author's name of the sculpture, "The King's Temptress", the seduction is directed at her master and lover, the king himself! Many of Clark's sculptures reveal his interest in the exotic or foreign, though these elements, such as Asiatic features, Far Eastern clothing, or romantic titles, are usually superficial additions to figures that are directly related to the idealized and decorative Art Deco figures being created by Clark's contemporaries. Though Clark was praised during his lifetime for how well he had assimilated Asian elements into his work, more recent critiques have noted his often superficial use of Asiatic and Native American ethnic traits and his regular equation of the fantastic and erotic with non-Western cultures. Though Clark's work does clearly reflect early twentieth century stereotypes, there are elements in his work that indicate that he assimilated more than the surface details of the sculptures he studied during his travels in the Far East. Similarities can be drawn, for example, between the full, rounded body contours of Clark's figures and the sculptures of India, or his creation of realistically detailed, painted wood sculptures and the lacquered sculptures of the Nara and Kamakura periods in Japan. His use of gilding and polychromy also reflects Asian influences and techniques.  

ABOUT ARTIST Allan Clark (American, 1896 – 1950). Born in Missoula, Montana, Allan Clark became a sculptor whose figure work reflected his world-wide travels, especially in the Orient where from 1924 to 1927, he studied in China, Korea and Japan. Clark was also a student at Puget Sound College in Tacoma, Washington; the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York. Clark was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, as well as the National Sculpture Society. He began work as a sculptor in 1917 in New York City working in stone and terra cotta while teaching at the Beaux - Arts Institute of Design. After his exposure to Oriental techniques, he did woodcarving in that manner. Clark was also a member of the Fogg Museum expedition to explore cave chapels near Turkestan. From this adventure, he did 20 drawings in color. In 1930, he moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico and sculpted Indian Heads whose titles include “Maria of Cochiti” and Klah-Navaho Medicine Man.”

SOLD

Novecento

Sirio Tofanari

Panther

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

Italy, ca. 1920

DIMENSIONS Height: 8.5 inches Width: 3.5 inches Depth:  6.5 inches 

SIRIO TOFANARI (Italian, 1886 – 1969), one of the most important sculptors-animalists of his era, was born in Florence in 1886, the son and grandson of ornamental sculptors and younger brother of the painter and sculptor Salvino Tofanari. Like his father and elder brother, whom he accompanied from a young age when they went hunting on the family estates, Sirio studied at the Florence Academy of Art, attending life classes there from 1902 to 1907.  

Orphaned at sixteen, he fell in love at eighteen with a woman some years older than himself, and in 1907 eloped with her to Paris and then to London to avoid quarrels with his two brothers. His vocation as a sculptor of animals revealed itself in London, as he went daily to study the animals at the zoo and regularly visited the Natural History Museum.  

His subsequent claim to have been self-taught must refer to these years of intense observation, upon which he based his artistic career. Already acquainted with animals in the wild from his early hunting expeditions, he became increasingly fascinated by the animal world as he advanced in maturity. 

After showing what must have been a drawing with the title ‘Laborers at work’ in Florence in 1906, Tofanari began to exhibit in several other Italian cities during his years in Paris and London: in 1908 he exhibited in both Faenza, where he attracted favorable attention, and Turin. In 1909, he was present at the Venice Biennale, where his sculpture of two panthers displaying affection, ‘The caress’, was acquired by the Gallery of Modern Art in Florence.  

From 1914, his work was also regularly included in exhibitions in Rome, and he had solo exhibitions at both the 3rd and the 4th Rome Biennale, ensuring that he gained wide recognition as the foremost exponent of the Animalier school in Italy by the 1920s. He had by then exhibited internationally: in Barcelona, where one of his sculptures (now in the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona) was bought in 1911, and in Buenos Aires and San Francisco. 

When a new building was planned for the thermal springs at the fashionable Tuscan resort of Montecatini, Tofanari was given the commission for the central fountain. Known as the ‘Fountain of the Crocodiles’, it is characteristically based on observation from life of its tropical subject, but dominated by a decorative scheme that includes stylized sea-horses and ornamental motifs that hark back to Art Nouveau.  

The year of its inauguration, 1928, was also marked by a personal exhibition of the artist’s work in Brussels, opened by Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians. The presence of this prominent supporter of the arts, who bought from the show for her own collection, is evidence of Tofanari’s considerable reputation at that time. In 1937, he moved to Milan, where there was demand for his work from private patrons, but his house, his studio and its contents were destroyed during an Allied bombing raid in 1942.  

His final years were spent modeling reliefs of religious scenes, but even then his interest in animals remained apparent (‘The sacred pelican’, 1961). He died in Milan in 1969.

sold

 Jugenstil

Sculptural Table Mirror

Patinated Bronze

Germany, circa 1920 

ABOUT MIRROR                              

Heavy and graceful sculptural table make-up mirror in the Jugenstil style. Made of black-patinated bronze in the shape of a slender young man holding a round mirror on his shoulders. The round mirror part rotates full 360 degrees around its axis, held in a bracket made in the shape of a crescent, covered on both sides in a complex geometric pattern. 

DIMENSIONS Height: 20 inches Width: 8 inches Depth: 5 inches 

CONDITION            Excellent antique condition, wear consistent with age and use.

SOLD

Dutch Art Deco

Jacobus Nicolaus Sandig

‘Icarus Falling (Stürzender Ikarus)’

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

Circa 1925

 ABOUT ARTIST                         

Regretfully, there is only limited information about the author of this wonderful sculpture: Jacobus Nicolaus Sandig (Dutch, 1876 - 1933) was active/lived in the Netherlands and is known for sculpture. 

DIMENSIONS                      Total height: 17.75 inches Width: 10.5 inches Depth: 9 inches Base height: 7.5 inches 

DETAILS                               Signed on integral bronze base ‘SANDIG’ 

CONDITION                        Excellent antique condition, wear consistent with age and use.  

ABOUT SCULPTURE > THE TRAGIC STORY OF THE FALL OF ICARUS

In Greek mythology, Icarus and his father, Daedalus, were imprisoned on an island by King Minos. As the legend goes, Daedalus wanted to leave Crete, but the king ordered him to stay and to go on working for him by building a maze to keep the feared Minotaur under control. In order to escape, Daedalus — a master craftsman — created two sets of wings made of wax and feathers. He warned his son not to fly very low, so as his wings would not get destroyed by the humidity of the sea; and not to fly too close to the sun, as the wax would melt them. 

While escaping, Icarus ignored his father's instructions to maintain a course between the heavens and the sea and flew too close to the sun. The excited and careless young boy started playing and flying higher, despite the exhortations of Daedalus. As the result, Icarus tumbles out of the sky, falls into the sea, and drowns. The myth gave rise to the idiom "don't fly too close to the sun”. The legend says that Icarus laughed as he fell and yelled into the winds, arms spread wide, teeth bared to the world. He fell to his death into what is now know as the Icarus Sea. After burying Icarus, Daedalus traveled to Camicus in Sicily, where he stayed as a guest under the protection of King Cocalus. There Daedalus built a temple to Apollo, and hung up his wings as an offering to the god. 

The tragic story of Icarus is one of those legends of Greek mythology that fascinates audiences because of his desire to go beyond human boundaries and the tragic consequences this brought about.

The fall of Icarus is the fall of humanity. It also signals degrading human values and essence of human living. Both, the sun and the sea showed no sincerity to think about Icarus. The moral of the myth warns against the needless search of instant satisfaction, in a way underlying the idea of sophrosyne (Greek: σωφροσύνη), a term that stands for healthy-mindedness, implying self-control guided by knowledge and balance. Life is a gift, and maintaining a balance with everything in moderation will ensure a long one. The wings represent the father giving his son life; the ocean and the sun represent the extremes of denying and overindulging yourself. Flying in between is the answer.

$7,500

HOLD

American Art Deco

Edgardo Simone

Accordion Player

Silvered Plaster Sculpture

Circa 1925 

DIMENSIONS                      Height: 18.5 inches            Width: 11.5 inches             Depth: 9 inches

MARKINGS                         Signed on integral base ‘Edoardo Simone U.S.A.

CONDITION                        Excellent vintage condition, wear consistent with age and use.

 Edgardo Simone, (Italian/American, 1890-1948)

Classically trained in Italy at the Beaux Arts Academy in Rome from 1906 to 1913, Edgardo Simone became a famous sculptor in Italy and the United States using mediums of terracotta, ceramic, bronze, and plaster.  He earned a Doctorate of Design and Sculpture at the Academy and then emigrated to the United States where he worked in New York, Chicago and southern California.  His style was influenced by Art Nouveau, Art Deco and other modernist influences. In Italy, he had received three times the Croix de Guerre and was decorated by King Victor Emmanuel II and Queen Margherita.  Before moving to America, he had much recognition in Italy.  He had created war and city monuments, and tombstones in twenty-six Italian cities.  When he arrived in New York City, one of the newspapers carried a headline: "Italy's greatest Sculptor Arrives in New York."
In New York, Simone became prominent in society and did many portrait busts including such of Thomas Edison, John J. Pershing, Henry Ford and Louis Brandeis.  Sally Rand, the famous fan dancer of Chicago's World's Fair in 1933-1934, sat as a model in his studio as did President Franklin Roosevelt and author Theodore Dreiser.

In 1940, he married composer Radie Britain (1897-1994) in Arizona, and five years later, she became the first woman to receive the Julliard Publication Award for a composition she dedicated to Charles Lindberg and his historic flight across the ocean to Paris.  After marriage, the couple moved to Coronado, California where Simone crafted works for Franciscan missions.  In the 1940s, they moved to Los Angeles, and he worked at MGM Studios doing busts of Hollywood celebrities, such as Marlene Dietrich and David Niven.  He also created a full-sized depiction of Jesus Christ for an alter scene in the movie, The Song of Bernadette; and a ceramic piece modeled by the wife of illustrator, Howard Christy. Edgardo Simone died in Hollywood in 1948.

$4,800

Art Deco

Fall of Eve

Multicolor Patinated Bronze

Western Europe

ca. 1920 

DIMENSIONS       Height: 15.5 inches            Width: 16.75 inches           Depth: 11.5 inches           

CONDITION         The sculpture is in excellent antique condition, wear consistent with age and use.  

Bearing a clear aesthetic influence of the Art Deco era, this wonderfully beautiful image of the progenitor Eve is a Western-European school sculptural portrait of a stunningly beautiful young woman in the state of erotic ecstasy; bowing her head and lustfully listening to the voluptuous speeches of the serpent, tempting her to eat from the forbidden fruit, and wrapping around her beautiful shoulders - that is, at that very critical moment preceding the fall of her and Adam in the Garden of Eden. A masterly sculpted face with half-closed eyes, an unusual red patina of feverish blush on her cheeks and crimson swollen lips emphasize sensuality and make this sculpture not only almost life-like, but also highly decorative.

$9,000

Jugenstil

Bernhard Johannes Karl Butzke

Fawn (Rehkitz)

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

Germany, ca. 1930 

MARKINGS & DETAILS       Signed ‘B. Butzke’ on integral base. Original black veined marble plinth.

DIMENSIONS                      Height:  24 inches Width: 15.5 inches Depth: 9 inches Base height: 1.5 inches

CONDITION                        Excellent antique condition, wear consistent with age and use.  

Bernhard Johannes Karl Butzke (German, 1876 - 1952) was a renown Berlin blacksmith and sculptor. Bernhard Butzke trained at the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur in Berlin, then was a student at the teaching institute of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin; and from 1893 to 1900, he was employed by KPM as a stylist. He then worked as a freelance sculptor in Berlin. 

Among other things, Bernhard Butzke created a decorative sculpture on the facades of the town halls in Charlottenburg and Friedenau; and a life-size bronze female nude (around 1910) for the town hall in Zehlendorf. The artist is particularly famous for his depictions of deer and other animals. During that period, he also worked as a stylist at the Schwarzburger workshops.

$7,500

French Art Deco

Henri Louis Bouchard

Victory of Bogota

France, ca. 1925 

ABOUT ‘VICTORY OF BOGOTA

Henri Louis Bouchard was an important French Romantic sculptor, known for works commemorating heroic moments in the history of his native Burgundy, as well as for his pieces focused on idyllic subjects. Around 1910-1913, he turned to a decorative style, more stripped down and purer, seeking stylization. During that time his art becomes sensibly rhythmic, and extremely decorative. He also received numerous commissions for monumental works and reliefs. In 1922, the sculptor created a ‘Head of Victory’ in plaster, which appeared at the Salon d'Automne of that same year and became somewhat a symbol of the era. Bouchard used this piece again in 1925, in a large statue that he called, at the time of its creation, “Victory without destination”; which later became “Victory of Bogota”. Reminiscent of ancient Greece indeed, this figure presented without arms (about 3m high) at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1926, was ordered in bronze for the city of Bogota, Colombia. Unfortunately, the sculpture disappears in the sinking of the boat which transports it…
MARKINGS          Signed on integral base ‘H. Bouchard’

DIMENSIONS       Height: 24.5 inches            Width: 6.25 inches             Depth: 10.5 inches

CONDITION         Excellent antique condition, wear consistent with age and use.  

ABOUT SCULPTOR

Henri Louis Bouchard (French, 1875–1960) was born in Dijon, into a family of craftsmen; his father, a carpenter, took him very young to visit the town museum; the child discovers the Tombs of the Dukes of Burgundy and the work of François Rude, artist to whom he will dedicate great admiration. Wanting to cut stone, in 1889 he entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Dijon and took lessons from the sculptor François Dameron. In 1894, a grant from the General Council of the Côte-d'Or allowed him to go to Paris. After the School of Decorative Arts, in 1895 he entered the School of Fine Arts in the studio of Ernest Barrias and obtained the Grand Prix de Rome in 1901, with his relief of Oedipus and Antigone driven out of Thebes; he stayed in Rome from 1902 to 1906. On his return, the sculptor moved to Paris, participated in several exhibitions and made himself known through the great Monument of the Reformation that he produced, with Paul Landowski, in Geneva. His work was part of the sculpture event in the art competition at the 1924 Summer Olympics. 

Bouchard practices all genres: the portrait, the human figure (peasants, winegrowers, workers ...), the animal figure and monumental sculpture, such as the group of Apollondu Palais de Chaillot in Paris (1937). Professor at the School of Decorative Arts in 1928, then professor-head of workshop at the School of Fine Arts from 1929 to 1945, the artist was elected to the Institute (Academy of Fine Arts) in 1933. In November 1941, Bouchard was one of a number of French painters and sculptors who accepted an official invitation from Joseph Goebbels for a grand tour of Nazi Germany. Others who accepted the invitation were Charles Despiau, Paul Landowski, André Dunoyer de Segonzac, and Fauve artists Kees van Dongen, Maurice de Vlaminck, and André Derain. On his return, Bouchard had kind words about the status accorded artists in Nazi Germany. Upon Liberation, in 1944, Bouchard was suspended from his professorship, branded a collaborator and ostracized by many former supporters. He died at his Parisian home where his workshop was located, rue de l'Yvette, which would become his museum until 2007, when the studio was transferred to the new La Piscine museum in Roubaix where the whole was now on display. This sculptor knew how to keep an artistic independence which made him one of the most authentic figures of figurative sculpture of the first half of the 20th century.

WORK

·        Symbols of the four evangelists, for the campanile of Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, Paris, 1911

·        Figure of the medieval sculptor Claus Sluter, 1911

·        Statues for the Reformation Wall in Geneva, in collaboration with Paul Landowski, circa 1912.

·        Monument ‘Children of Saint-Quentin in collaboration with Paul Bigot and Paul Landowski, 1927.

·        Christ on the Cross on the facade of the church of Saint-Martin, Chauny, France, circa 1930

·        The tympanum of the church Saint Pierre de Chaillot in Paris, 1933–1935.

·        Bronze Apollo for the Jardins du Trocadéro below the Palais de Chaillot, Paris, 1937.

·        The tomb of Albert Bartholomé, Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.

·        The tomb of Gabriel Pierné, Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.

·        The tomb of Général Grossetti, Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.

$24,000

French Art Deco

PAUL PHILIPPE

'IRONY’

Gilt Bronze & Marble Sculpture

ca. 1925

ABOUT SCULPTURE

'Irony' is one of several works by the famous French sculptor, Paul Philippe that make up his celebrated series of outstandingly beautiful female nude figures in various natural states, moods and emotions, including such outstanding sculptures as 'Thoughtfulness', 'Awakening', ‘Irony’ and others. Each model was cast in two versions - large and reduced. In this case, we present the original (larger version) of the famous sculpture. Signed ‘P. Philippe’ and foundry stamp ‘Fonderie AG Paris’ on the bottom of the bronze plinth affixed on the original marble base of a totally unusual shape. 

DIMENSIONS

Height: 19.5 inches         Width: 5 inches         Depth: 4.5 inches         Base height: 3.5 inches 

ABOUT ARTIST

The famous French sculptor, Paul Philippe (French, 1870 - 1930) was born in the town of Thorn in Poland. In 1899-1915, he lived and worked in Paris, studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, in the studio of Antonin Larroux (1859-1913), whose allegorical compositions, made in the neoclassical style, were repeatedly awarded prestigious awards at the Paris Salons. 

Working in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles, Philip is one of the few sculptors who worked not only with the usual clay, bronze or stone, but also with porcelain, wood, as well as wax, ivory, chryselephantine, and decorated some of his works with precious stones. While working for a time in Berlin, he sometimes employed the Rosenthal und Maeder (R.U.M.), and Preiss-Kassler foundries to cast his work. 

All his models are distinguished by extreme refinement and delicacy of forms. The master paid special attention to the quality of the finish and the selection of spectacular patina. Thanks to shades of brown, gilded and silvered patinas, his sculptures looked unusually impressive and life-like. 

Paul Philippe occupies a special place, no matter how trite it may sound, in the history of small Art Deco plastics for he is a servant of two art schools, German and French, who implemented this unique combination fruitfully simultaneously in both, France and Weimar Germany. 

Paul Philippe specialized mainly in female images. A number of the pieces he created were of figures in the nude, which was popular during the era. Some compositions include images of animals (‘Girl with a Dog’, for example). Particularly frequent characters in Philippe’s sculptural compositions were real-life and well-known faces to the sculptor - cabaret dancers, theater artists, demimondaine. 

After the end of the First World War, Philip moved to Germany, however, the sculptor's artistic and personal ties with Paris were not interrupted. He created many sculptures, from miniature figurines to impressive monuments, looking at which you hold your breath while eagerly admiring the skill of the author. Paul Philippe was called by some a sculptor-archeologist for his exceptionally accurate portraits of people who lived several thousand years ago. 

Philippe's work is exhibited in the Art Deco Museum in Moscow, Russia, one of the newest museums in Russian capital, opened in 2014. His work is also a part of other major museum and private collections around the world. 

Paul Philippe died in 1930, but the location of his burial site is unknown.

$4,800 

French Art Deco

Paul Philippe

'IRONY’

Gilt Bronze & Marble Sculpture

ca. 1925

'Irony'

'Irony' is one of several works by the famous French sculptor, Paul Philippe that make up his celebrated series of outstandingly beautiful female nude figures in various natural states, moods and emotions, including such outstanding sculptures as 'Thoughtfulness', 'Awakening', ‘Irony’ and others. Each model was cast in two versions - large and reduced. In this case, we present the original reduced version of the famous sculpture. Signed ‘P. Philippe’ and foundry stamp ‘Fonderie AG Paris’ on the bottom of the bronze plinth affixed on the original marble base of a totally unusual shape.

Dimensions:       Height – 11.25 inches         Base – 4 x 3.5 inches 

Paul Philippe (French, 1870 - 1930)

The famous French sculptor, Paul Philippe was born in the town of Thorn in Poland. In 1899-1915, he lived and worked in Paris, studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, in the studio of Antonin Larroux (1859-1913), whose allegorical compositions, made in the neoclassical style, were repeatedly awarded prestigious awards at the Paris Salons.

Working in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles, Philip is one of the few sculptors who worked not only with the usual clay, bronze or stone, but also with porcelain, wood, as well as wax, ivory, chryselephantine, and decorated some of his works with precious stones. While working for a time in Berlin, he sometimes employed the Rosenthal und Maeder (R.U.M.), and Preiss-Kassler foundries to cast his work.

All his models are distinguished by extreme refinement and delicacy of forms. The master paid special attention to the quality of the finish and the selection of spectacular patina. Thanks to shades of brown, gilded and silvered patinas, his sculptures looked unusually impressive and life-likPaul Philippe occupies a special place, no matter how trite it may sound, in the history of small Art Deco plastics for he is a servant of two art schools, German and French, who implemented this unique combination fruitfully simultaneously in both, France and Weimar Germany.

Paul Philippe specialized mainly in female images. A number of the pieces he created were of figures in the nude, which was popular during the era. Some compositions include images of animals (‘Girl with a Dog’, for example). Particularly frequent characters in Philippe’s sculptural compositions were real-life and well-known faces to the sculptor - cabaret dancers, theater artists, demimondaine.

After the end of the First World War, Philip moved to Germany, however, the sculptor's artistic and personal ties with Paris were not interrupted. He created many sculptures, from miniature figurines to impressive monuments, looking at which you hold your breath while eagerly admiring the skill of the author. Paul Philippe was called by some a sculptor-archeologist for his exceptionally accurate portraits of people who lived several thousand years ago.

Philippe's work is exhibited in the Art Deco Museum in Moscow, Russia, one of the newest museums in Russian capital, opened in 2014. His work is also a part of other major museum and private collections around the world.

Paul Philippe died in 1930, but the location of his burial site is unknown.

1,750 

Italian Art Deco

Gio Ponti

for Salvatore Saponaro & richard-ginori s.cristoforo, milano

The Tired Pilgrim

Enameled Earthenware Sculpture

ca. 1925

Sculpture modeled by Salvatore Saponaro, based on design by Gio Ponti.
Marked 'Richard-Ginori S. Cristoforo Milano Made in Italy' with the graphic symbol of the manufacturer. Excellent antique condition, wear consistent with age and use. 

Dimensions:         Height: 25cm         Width: 21cm         Depth: 16cm 

The sculpture depicts a male figure with his head reclined and resting on his left hand, sitting cross-legged on a base. The model of the tired pilgrim was exhibited at the Second International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Monza, in 1925. The traits of the character refer to the figure of the resting traveler, also presented in many sculptures produced in the eighteenth century by Felice Clerici's Milanese factory. The success achieved by this particular iconographic subject is also testified by the large series of tiles and vases that reproduce not only the pilgrim, but also different varieties of "tired figures"; such as a hunter, a sailor, a player, a reader, a smoker and a gardener. The earthenware maintains the same playful and ironic spirit, made modern and light by the essential line and the rounded shapes. It has become an icon of the great Milanese architect, Gio Ponti. 

Gio Ponti (Italian, 1891-1979), an Italian designer, architect and editor was one of the most influential design visionaries of the 20th century. Ponti designed a wide array of furniture and products through his career - from cabinets, lamps and chairs to ceramics and glassware - and his buildings, including Pirelli tower in Milan, and Denver Art Museum, were erected in 14 countries. 

Through Domus, the design magazine he founded in 1928, Ponti promoted a new curiosity and open-mindedness towards new design thinking. Today, a wide range of Ponti's designs are snapped up by savvy collectors who want to give their homes a touch of Italian panache and effortless chic.

Gio Ponti was a conceptualist who always drew lines between the architecture and the interior design. Ponti never viewed architecture as simply creating buildings. Instead, he often conceived of the building's interior as well; creating furniture, lighting appliances, and even ceramics, glassware and silverware to fit the overall concept. His design was influenced by la dolce vita; he encouraged everybody to use good design to enjoy life to the fullest. This exact colourful, joyful, sensual Italian good life is reflected in his portfolio, and will certainly continue to influence artists and designers well into the future.

Today, a wide range of Ponti's designs are snapped up by savvy collectors who want to give their homes a touch of Italian panache and effortless chic. 

Literature
Richard-Ginori Ceramic Society, Modern Art Ceramics
Richard Ginori, Milan, 1930, p. 110
Ugo La Pietra, Gio Ponti, Rizzoli, Milan, 1995, p. 30

sold

French Art Deco

Head of Senegalese Man

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

Ca. 1930s 

Dimensions:

Height: 14.75 inches (6.9cm) Width: 7.33 inches (18.3cm) Depth: 8,5 inches (21.25cm) 

Description:

The sculpture presented here - The Head of a Senegalese Man - was created in the ‘Négritude’ style and is an exemplary to this movement in French Art Deco visual arts. A spectator’s attention is mostly drawn to the proud position of the man's head with upturned chin; as well as certain expression of his slightly narrowed eyes, as if looking at the world around him with philosophical confidence and even irony. The original ebony Macassar wood veneer base ties in perfectly with the French Art Deco period in which this striking sculpture was made. 

Condition:

Good antique condition, wear consistent with age and use. We make our best effort to provide a fair and descriptive condition report. Please examine photos attentively, as they are an integral part of the description.  

Style:

In the 1920s and 1930s, a sharp rise in the national movement began in the metropolis (France itself) and in a number of French overseas possessions, which included overseas departments (Algeria, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guiana, Reunion), overseas territories of French West Africa, consisting the Ivory Coast, Dahomey or French Dahomey (now Benin), French Sudan (now Mali), Guinea or French Guinea, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, French Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso); as well as French Equatorial Africa, French Somalia, Madagascar, almost all possessions in Oceania , five cities in India, Saint Pierre and Miquelon Islands, acceding states (Morocco, Tunisia, Indochina) and Trust Territories (Togo, Cameroon, New Hebrides). 

Against the background of the collapse of the French colonial empire, the recently emerged Art Deco direction in art was just entering its zenith, becomes a new vector that clearly reflected bs aesthetic preferences and artistic tastes; and, in some cases, even political views and adherence of sophisticated connoisseurs and ordinary art consumers in literature, music, drama, fine and decorative arts, and sculpture. 

“Négritude” is a cultural concept developed by French-speaking intellectuals, writers, artists and politicians of the African Diaspora in France during the 1930s, aimed at raising and cultivating "black consciousness" in Africa and its French Diaspora. Among the many different thinkers and artists of the time who were heavily influenced by this concept, there are several world-famous names worth mentioning here, such as Charles Baudelaire, André Breton, René Maran and Arthur Rimbaud, just to name a few.  Although each of them had their own ideas about the purpose and styles of “Negritude”, the philosophy of works created by them was generally characterized by opposition to colonialism, a condemnation of the alleged inhumanity of Europe and a rejection of Western domination and ideas. The goal of the movement was to emphasize that black people do have a rich history and dignified culture, able to stand on an equal footing with the cultures of other world countries. 

sold

Italian Art Deco

Dante Baldelli

Streamlined Ceramic Sculpture

Ca. 1939 

Black and multi-color enameled earthenware.

The work dates back to circa 1939, signed ‘BALDELLI’, and marked on the base: ‘XI°’.

Dimensions:       Height: 15 1/2"       Width: 24”       Depth: 4 1/2"

This important sculpture, remarkable in every respect, in all probability was exhibited at the 1939 New York World Exhibition in the collection of Italian contemporary art on display in the Italian pavilion. The value of this work can hardly be overestimated. Rather, it should be viewed from two points of view, artistic and historical. On the one hand, thanks to the artistic talent of Dante Baldelli, its expressiveness, dynamics, tension of the moment and charge with victorious energy are indisputable artistic merits that can cause the envy of many sculptors of that time and today. On the other hand, its ideologization, politicization and clear propaganda orientation cause a certain feeling of denial of the regime that existed in Italy then in the modern viewer even today. However, the historical component should not be forgotten, as well; which at the same time makes this work of art especially interesting for a true connoisseur. There is a thin hair-like gluing line on the bottom of one of the pistol barrels, indicating that it was previously lightly restored. Otherwise, the sculpture is in excellent condition – no chips, cracks, and no discolorations.

The sculpture depicts three stylized human figures, reminiscent of sprinters at the start of the race, and, as it were, arched from the muzzles of pistols. A road post with the inscription "Duce" on it (referred to Benito Mussolini, English: "leader") is a kind of reference point, a kind of energy spring that gives impetus to the purposeful rapid movement of figures forward and upward, symbolizing the sculptor's vision of the future of Italy as a certain apogee of the fascist idea. 

Even greater dissonance and bewilderment in today's perception of the viewer is caused by the inscription in the form of a frieze, encircling the upper edge of the base: "Roma - Chicago - New York", which actually reflects the real state of affairs, i.e. Italy's participation in the A Century of Progress International Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair (1933); and in the New York World's Fair (1939). 

Another curious detail that helps also helps to determine the timing of the creation of this sculpture is the type of the font used in depiction of city names on the base of the sculpture - Rome, New York and Chicago. This world-famous font type (typeface) is called "Broadway" and has its own well-documented history. "Broadway" is a decorative typeface, perhaps the archetypal Art Deco typeface. The original face was designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1927 for ATF (American Type Founders) and has been released in 1928 as a capital letters font only. Morris Fuller Benton (1872 - 1948) was an American typeface designer who headed the design department of the American Type Founders (ATF), for which he was the chief type designer from 1900 to 1937. In the late 1920s, another famous face type designer, Sol Hess added a lower case letters to the font, and an engraved version for Lanston Type Co. The "Broadway" typeface had a long initial run of world popularity, dating back to the second half of the 1930s. The usage of “Broadway” has been discontinued by ATF only in 1954. In the later period (circa 1980s), the font was re-discovered and has ever since been used again; this time around to evoke the feeling of the 1920s and 1930s.

The 1939 fair is particularly fascinating, given the crucial historical moment it took place, and it’s also deeply interesting to think of Italy’s official participation in such an event on American soil at that time. The dates are crucial. On the eve of World War II, the opening speech by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Apr 30th 1939) was about peace and the concerns for the situation in Europe. While Germany did not participate (officially on account for budget problems, but of course Germany needed all its resources for the impending war), and the USSR built the most monumental pavilion of the Fair but only took part in 1939, Italy, that is to say Fascist Italy, participated with a huge pavilion (the second largest after the Soviet building) designed by the architect Michele Busiri Vici. Majestic but somehow elegant, it combined ancient Roman magnificence with the peculiar Fascist modern style. On the facade there were a statue representing Rome, a monument to Guglielmo Marconi (one of the greatest modern Italians) and a very tall waterfall (60 meters high). Inside the building Italy showed both works of art and industrial products, and there was a very popular Italian restaurant. 

The war broke out only a few months later (in September), during the Fair, but for Italy it would have begun in June 1940. So, immediately before and during the first phases of the conflict, Fascist Italy was representing itself abroad, in the New World, in the Land of Freedom and Democracy, in a culturally antagonistic context, with huge visibility: the exhibition was visited by 44 million fair-goers. 

Dante Baldelli (1904-1953) was a world-famous Italian Impressionist & Modern artist, who was born in 1904 and had witnessed the changes of several important and very significant trends and styles in art - Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Modernism. He was an offspring of the Baldelli family, who has been making ceramics for four generations. Baldelli ceramics have been made by 'Ceramiche Baldelli' in Citta di Castello, near Perugia, Italy. A talented sculptor and ceramist in his own right, Dante Baldelli began working in the family business since the 1920s, and later became the director of Ceramica Rometti di Umbertide. He opened his own workshop in 1943, in piazza Gioberti, Città di Castello, accompanied by his brother Angelo. Gradually, he was assisted by his oldest son Massimo, who was eight at the time; and who, being only 18 years of age at the time, took over the business at the unexpected death of his father, Dante Baldelli in 1953. Under the leadership of Massimo Baldelli, the production of Ceramica Rometti di Umbertide was being sold in US department stores from the 1970s. During the 1980s, Massimo Baldelli's daughter Simona and her husband Lorenzo Colacicchi joined the family business. Ceramica Rometti di Umbertide is still in existence today. Dante Baldelli's sculptural and ceramic works of art have been offered at art auctions worldwide multiple times, still being the subject of desire and collecting for numerous connoisseurs and collectors of both fine and applied arts.

sold

American Art Deco

BERNHARD SOPHER

SEATED NUDE

PATINATED BRONZE SCULPTURE

Ca. 1930s

Signed on the base: ‘B. Sopher’

Well-preserved original dark brown patina.

Dimensions:       Height: 7.5"       Width: 8"       Depth: 7" 

Bernhard (Burnat David) Sopher (1879 – 1949) was a German-American sculptor. He was born in Safed, Syria and studied sculpture at the Berin Art Academy from 1897; and from 1905 to 1908, at the Weimar School of Crafts with Adolf Brutt in Berlin and Weimar. At the end of his studies, he was already involved in the realization of the monument to Grand Duke Carl Alexander on Karlsplatz in Weimar and in the work of the foyer of the Weimar National Theater. From 1908, Sopher lived as a freelance sculptor in Dusseldorf. In 1914, Sopher, who had been a Turkish citizen until then, applied for Prussian citizenship; he served as a volunteer for Germany in World War I. In the 1920s, he became known as a member of the association Das Unge Rheinland. From 1929 to 1931, he was involved in the Rhenish Secession Artists' Association. As Jewish artist, the Nazi regime had banned him from working in 1934; and with the help of Ernst Gottschalk, Sopher emigrated to the United States in 1935, and became a US citizen in 1943. Sopher created portrait busts of Sigmund Freud znd Arnold Schonberg, among others . His bronze sculpture Die Nubierin (also called The Water Carrier) created in 1925, is preserved in the gardens south of the Rheinterrasse in Düsseldorf .  Sopher's Pieta created around 1923 in the park of the Palais Spree, Düsseldorf, can also be viewed publicly until today. Around 1932, Sopher created the bronze figure Johanna Ey standing, which is now in the possession and permanent collection of the Düsseldorf City Museum, Germany. Bernhard (Burnat David) Sopher died in 1949, in Los Angeles, California.

$3,800

American Art Deco

Alexander Archipenko

Abstract Cubist Sculpture

Terracotta

ca. 1937

Signed ‘Archipenko’. 

Dimensions: Height: 26 inches (66cm) Width:  8 inches (20cm) Depth:  11 inches (28cm) 

ALEXANDER PORFYROVICH ARCHIPENKO (Ukrainia/American, 1887-1964) was a Ukrainian American artist best known for his original Cubist-inspired sculptural style. After studying in Kyiv, in 1908 Archipenko briefly attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but he quickly abandoned formal studies to become part of more radical circles, especially the Cubist movement. He began to explore the interplay between interlocking voids and solids and between convex and concave surfaces, forming a sculptural equivalent to Cubist paintings’ overlapping planes and, in the process, revolutionizing modern sculpture. The abstract shapes of his works have a monumentality and rhythmic movement that also reflect contemporary interest in the arts of Africa. As he developed his style, Archipenko achieved an incredible sense of vitality out of minimal means: in works such as Boxing Match (1913), he conveyed the raw, brutal energy of the sport in nonrepresentational, machinelike cubic and ovoid forms. About 1912, inspired by the Cubist collages of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, Archipenko introduced the concept of collage in sculpture in his famous Medrano series, depictions of circus figures in multicolored glass, wood, and metal that defy traditional use of materials and definitions of sculpture. During that same period he further defied tradition in his “sculpto-paintings,” works in which he introduced painted color to the intersecting planes of his sculpture. Archipenko taught art briefly in Berlin, Germany from 1921 to 1923. He worked as an art teacher for the rest of his life in New York City, except for a short time (1937–39) when he was connected with the New Bauhaus in Chicago. He continued to make sculptures, although he never again achieved the success and influence of his Cubist years.

$24,000

American Art Deco

Isidore Konti

A Feeding Mother

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

ca. 1920s

Signed ‘I. Konti’

Original dark-green patina. 

Dimensions: Height: 5.13 inches (12.82cm) Width: 4.25 inches (10.62cm) Depth: 3 inches (7.5cm) 

ISIDORE KONTI (Austrian/American, 1862 – 1938) was a Vienna-born (of Hungarian parents) sculptor. He began formal art studies at the age of 16 when he entered the Imperial Academy in Vienna, where he studied under Edmund von Hellmer. In 1886, he won a scholarship that allowed him to study in Rome for two years. While there he developed a love of Renaissance art that was to affect the nature of his mature sculpture. Upon returning to Austria, Konti worked as an architectural modeler. In 1890, 1891 or 1892 (depending on the source) Konti moved, permanently as it turned out, to America, going straight to Chicago, where he began working on sculptural decorations for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. When the work there was completed, he moved to New York City and commenced working as an assistant for fellow Austrian expatriate Karl Bitter. Konti's skills as a modeler kept him in much demand—for the 1900 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York; for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis; and for the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. In 1906 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1909. Isidore Konti, was a highly skilled practitioner of the Beaux-Arts tradition. He lived in Yonkers from 1906 until his death, even moving his studio from New York City in 1914. Konti became a key member of the Yonkers cultural scene, co-founding the Yonkers Art Association, serving as commissioner of the Yonkers Museum of Science and Arts (Hudson River Museum), and producing four commissions for public statuary. Konti earned an international reputation for works such as "The Genius of Immortality", with it sensuous and sinuous lines and tactile surfaces, was one of his most admired sculptures. The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired a copy in 1916, the next year another was lent to the Detroit Institute of Art by one if its major donors. Overseas, the Italian government owned a copy. Like many of Konti’s subjects, the poetic title of the Genius is not directly narrative, but suggests a variety of allegorical associations. In 1908, Isidore Konti, busy with several commissions, hired Paul Manship as an assistant. Though Manship, a herald of Art Deco Modernism, is better remembered, both artists achieved international renown in their day, when their statues adorned the lavishly landscaped gardens of Samuel Untermyer’s Greystone estate. Their sculptures bracket the long years spent by Untermyer landscaping and embellishing his elaborate Yonkers estate, a portion of which is now preserved as a public park. Samuel Untermyer’s mansion, Greystone, is Yonkers grandest “lost” house, originally built in the 1860s for hat manufacturer John Waring. The second owner was former New York governor Samuel Tilden, who retired to Yonkers after losing the 1876 Presidential election to Rutherford Hayes. Untermyer (1858-1940) purchased Greystone in 1899. A graduate of Columbia Law School and a moderate Zionist, he is best known for his trust-busting activities and for his early and vociferous opposition to Hitler. The Untermyers commissioned Konti to sculpt The Brook, a marble fountain figure on a pedestal with putti and swans (right, shown at Greystone). The model had first been executed in plaster for the 1902 National Sculpture Society Exhibition held at Madison Square Garden, where it was widely admired, not the least of which by Untermyer. Not long after the commission was completed, Konti moved with his family from Manhattan to Yonkers, having been inspired by Greystone's magnificent landscape. Isidore Konti also happened to be Paul Manship's mentor at the time that Konti produced The Brook for Greystone. Manship (1885-1966), then a burgeoning artist, worked in Konti's studio for a couple of years during which the two formed a lasting friendship. It is unclear whether Konti had anything to do with Manship's later much-celebrated commissions for Greystone, though if nothing else, Konti's 1906 fountain would have made Manship aware of Greystone and Untermyer. In 1909 Manship won the coveted Prix de Rome and spent the next three years there. Upon Manship's return to New York, he established a friendship with William Welles Bosworth (1869-1966), Untermyer's landscape architect. Their friendship, along with the Konti connection (presumedly), led to Manship's first commission at Greystone in 1917. Konti died in Yonkers, New York on January 11, 1938.

sold

French Art Deco

Paul Silvestre

Faun & Goose

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

ca. 1920’s

Signed on the plinth “Silvestre”

Original wooden base.

 Dimensions: Height: 11.75 inches (29.37cm) Width: 23.25 inches (58.12cm) Depth: 6 inches (15cm) 

PAUL SILVESTRE (French, 1884-1976) was a French sculptor. Paul Silvestre was born in Toulouse, where his father was a carpenter. In 1905, he admitted Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris workshops and studied under Antonin Mercie and Antonin Caries. He received Prix de Rome 1912. xhibited regularly from 1921 at the Salon des artistes français, where he won a gold medal in 1930. Paul Silvestre was appointed a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 1906.

$5,500

American Art Deco

Lucile Swan

Lady with a Fan

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

ca. 1920s

Signed on the plinth “Lucile Swan”

Valsuani Foundry stamp.

Original black patina.

 Dimensions: Height: 14.5 inches (36.25cm) Width: 5 inches (12.5cm) Depth: 2.5 inches (6.25cm) 

LUCILE SWAN (American, 1887-1965) was born in Sioux City, Iowa. She attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1908 to 1912. In December 1912 she married painter Jerome Blum in Paris, France. Together, they traveled together to Corsica, Cuba, China, Japan, Tahiti and eventually settled in Greenwich Village, New York City. Swan and Blum were both prolific artists who worked while they traveled. Lucile divorced Jerome Blum in 1924. After the divorce, Lucile moved to Peking, China in 1929. In 1937, as the assistant of Dr. Franz Weidenreich, she worked on reconstructing the skull of the Peking Man, a Homo Erectus hominid, on a paleontological dig in China. She also sculpted a bust of Jesuit priest Telihard de Chardin, who was the geologist on the dig. She fell in love with him but he held to his priestly vows of celibacy. They kept up a long correspondence. Lucile Swan died in New York City ten years after the death of de Chardin.

$3,800

ON HOLD

German Art Deco

Joseph Franz Pallenberg

A Bear

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

ca. 1920s

 Signed “Jos. Pallenberg”.

Dark-brown patina, original black marble base. 

Dimensions:   Height: 8 inches (20cm)       Width: 7.5 inches (18.75cm)       Depth: 8.5 inches (21.25cm) 

 JOSEPH FRAMZ PALLENBERG | German, 1882-1946 was extremely interested in animals from an early age. A visit to the Cologne zoo inspired the six-year-old child to begin drawing animals, and attempts to model them followed soon after. Experiments at reconstructing the skeletons of dead animals, which he first boiled in his mother’s saucepans, were the starting point of a later studio that would become crammed with skeletons and casts from nature. In 1899, Pallenberg, then just seventeen, enrolled at the art academy in Düsseldorf, where he first studied drawing, but soon switched to the sculpture class of Karl Janssen. While he was still a student, his group ‘Boar hunt’ brought him his first critical acclaim in 1902, when it was recommended for a gold medal at the Great Industrial Trade Fair in Düsseldorf. 

Pallenberg left the academy, as he did not think too highly of his teacher, and went to Berlin, where Ludwig Heck, the director of the Berlin zoo, who had formerly worked in Cologne, fully supported his work. Carl Hagenbeck, the founder of the Hamburg zoo and inventor of gateless enclosures, met the young Pallenberg in Berlin and commissioned him to adorn the main entrance gate of his new zoo in Hamburg with large-scale animal sculptures before its opening in 1907. It was Pallenberg’s early interest in anatomy and his accuracy in capturing the animal’s attitude that brought him the high praise of these zoologists. At the same time as creating the large sculptures for Hamburg, Pallenberg modelled works such as the ‘Rominter stag’, or ‘Roaring stag’, one of his best known works, for which he received the golden state medal at the Deutsch-Nationale Kunstausstellung in Düsseldorf in 1907. A cast of this work is still on display at the Berlin zoo today. 

Following the assignment for the entrance gate in Hamburg, Hagenbeck commissioned life-sized sculptures of dinosaurs from Pallenberg. With the help of his brothers, the artist executed several monumental beasts in concrete, forming a park of these prehistoric animals, reflecting what was known about them at the time. Pallenberg did not work only in Germany. Following the Hamburg dinosaurs, he received an invitation to La Plata in Argentina to create sculptures of local primeval animals that were to be embossed in copper – unfortunately this commission fell through due to lack of money. Pallenberg also repeatedly went to the United States, studying the animals at the zoos in Cincinnati and Detroit, and designing the exterior of the giraffe and hippopotamus houses in Detroit zoo in the 1930s. 

Pallenberg’s sculptures always remained very close to nature. Quite often, it is possible to detect the individual animal that he took as his model. He did not want to create a stereotyped representative of any species, but mostly made actual portraits of a specific beast. The range of animals he depicted is vast, including many rare and endangered species. Horses, big cats and bears fascinated him particularly. His oeuvre encompasses single animals as well as groups of two or more, shown at rest, playing, fighting or hunting – an exceptional diversity in the work of one artist. The sculptures are precise depictions of the animals’ anatomy and movements as well as their behaviour. Pallenberg’s closeness to nature repeatedly led to negative criticism as he was accused of mere mimicry. But, regardless of these reproaches, he developed a high reputation and received much acknowledgement, not only from scientists, but also for the artistic achievements in his sculptures. Various awards and prizes decorated his studio, where Pallenberg worked amongst many live animals, including a tame lion and a wolf. He died in Düsseldorf on 26 June 1946.

$4,800

German Art Deco

Ernst Seger

David and Lion

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

ca. 1920s

Signed “E. Seger”.

Original black patina. 

Dimensions:   Height: 8 inches (20cm)       Width: 7.5 inches (18.75cm)       Depth: 8.5 inches (21.25cm) 

THE BIBLE STORY

Samuel 17:34-36

Originally, Saul would not allow David to fight Goliath (17:33). Saul’s reason was simply that Goliath would be stronger than David. David was young and he did not have the experience to fight such a capable enemy as Goliath. David was likely to die, and his death would benefit nobody. Often people wrongly imagine that they are acting in faith (in other words, that they are trusting God). Really, they are acting in a foolish manner, as if the danger is not real. They are not trusting in God, but in their own thoughts, hopes and desires. David’s reply to Saul shows us his attitudes. This reply explains clearly why David had offered to fight Goliath. In other words, it shows how David considered himself able to defeat Goliath. Like many boys and young men in Israel, David had worked as a shepherd. That is, he looked after sheep. He was responsible to look after those sheep in every way. In particular, he had to protect them from wild animals. Lions and bears are some of the fiercest large wild animals. They were common in Israel at the time of the Bible. They are much stronger than a man (see for example 1 Kings 13:24 and 2 Kings 2:24). Only the bravest and strongest men were able to kill a lion (Judges 14:5-6; 2 Samuel 23:20). However, David had killed both a lion and a bear. He had killed animals that were stronger than him. David did not believe that the strongest man would win the fight. David had a close relationship with God; he was trusting God to rescue him (17:37). David was not pretending that there was no danger. However, God’s Holy Spirit was active in David’s life (16:13). By the power of his Holy Spirit, God had given David the faith (trust in God) to fight Goliath. Because David really was trusting God, there was no reason for him to be afraid of Goliath. 

ERNST SEGER (1865 1939), born in Neurode (Nowa Ruda, now Poland), studied sculpturing from 1884 at the Kunstschule in Breslau under Robert Härtel. From 1886 he worked in the Atelier of Christian Behrens, where he created the Eichendorff-Memorial for the Silezian City of Neisse. From 1893 to 1894 Seger stayed in Paris where he worked in the atelier of Auguste Rodin. However, Seger finally chose a ‘Jugenstill’ and a more ‘naturalistic’ or ‘Neuklassizismus’ style. His sculptures, modelled like the Greek antiques, were later greatly admired by the National Socialists.  

At the end of 1894 Ernst Seger went back to Berlin, founded his own atelier and created the Kaiser Wilhelm I memorial for the Silesian City of Glatz. In 1897 Seger created the sculpture ‘Jugend’ (‘Youth’), which was displayed at the ‘Große Berliner Kunstausstellung’ in 1898, at the ‘Große Berliner Kunstausstellung’ in 1899, at the ‘Münchener Glaspalast Ausstellung’ in 1899 and at the ‘Münchener Glaspalast Ausstellung’ in 1908. As a sculptor Seger regarded this as his first relevant work, his breakthrough. A copy of the sculpture in bronze, 1.60 metres high, was placed in the ‘Scheitniger Park’ in Breslau (now Wroclaw). In 1898 Segers ‘Diana’, the Roman Goddess of the Hunt, the Moon and Childbirth, was unvealed in Park Szczytnicki, Breslau, Polen (earlier ‘Schneitniger Park’). Until 1945 the sculpture stayed in the Schneitniger Park, Breslau. This part of the park is still called ’Dianagarten’.

After the turn of the century the elegant female dancers and nudes by Seger gained great popularity. In 1905 Ernst Seger created -together with the sculptor Bernhard Sehring- the ‘Bismarck Brunnen’ (‘Bismarck Fountain’) in Breslau. This memorial-fountain (which still exists) represents the allegories ‘Kampf’ and ‘Sieg’ (‘Battle and Victory’). Seger’s  ‘Verwundete Amazone’ (‘Wounded Amazon’), displayed at the Grosse Münchner Kunstausstellung in the Glaspalast in 1908, was placed in the garden of the ‘Kaufhauses Wertheim’ in Berlin. In the same year he was appointed as a professor. Seger’s marble sculpture ‘Kypris’, created in 1916, was placed in the Alten Nationalgalerie in Berlin. In 1925 the City of Berlin acquired his sculpture ‘Anbetung’ and placed it at the Johannaplatz. ‘Storchenbrunnen’ (‘Stork-fountain’), was placed in 1931 at the Adolf-Scheidt-Platz in Berlin. In 1935 the American newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst bought Seger’s sleeping ‘Ganymede’.

During the Third Reich Ernst Seger was commissioned numerous Hitler busts; in 1933 one of them was placed in the hall of honour at the ‘Internationale Funkausstellung’(‘German Radio Exposition’) in Berlin. At the turn of the year 1933/1934 he created a relief of ‘Hindenburg and Hitler’. Despite Segers popularity and fame his life-size ‘Am Ziel’ (‘At the Finish’) which had stood at the edge of the Berlin Wannsee since 1934, was melted down in 1940, as bronze was needed for the war-industry (‘Am Ziel’, 190 cm high, was displayed for the first time at the exhibition ‘Hundert Jahre Berliner Kunst’, 1929, organized by the Verein Berliner Künstler).

At the Great German Art Exhibitions Seger was, until his death in 1939, represented with seven sculptures, including ‘Sportlerin’. Adolf Hitler bought ‘Lebenskraft’  (‘Vitality’) for 15,000 RM, as well as ‘Gewichtheber’ (‘Weightlifter’) and ‘Kraftgefühl’ (‘Feeling of Power’). Ernst Seger died in August 1939 in Berlin. Seger’s gravestone at the Südwestkirchhof Stahnsdorf bears his marble relief ‘Der Bildhouwer und sein Gedanken’, which was displayed at the Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung 1921.

$5,800

AMERICAN MODERNISM

Rhys Caparn

A Creeping CAT

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

1935

Dimensions:   Height: 27 inches (67.5cm)       Width: 16.5 inches (41.25cm)       Depth: 14 inches (25cm)
Base height: 3 inches (7.5cm) 

This amazing signed and dated dark-brown patinated bronze sculpture of a creeping cat on the original wood base is a classic by Rhys Caparn Steel (1909-1997), a renowned American sculptor who was always ahead of her time. With the encouragement of her teacher, the world-famous sculptor Alexander Archipenko, she explored European modernism when the prevailing taste in the United States was social realism. Her favorite subjects were animals, birds and landscapes, rendered in semi-abstract forms.

Rhys Caparn (American, 1909-1997) (From the NYTimes Obituary in 1997): "Rhys Steel Caparn, age 87, Danbury, CT, a noted sculptress, died Tuesday in Danbury, CT. She was formerly of Newtown, CT., and was the widow of H. Johannes Steel. Mrs. Steel was born in Onteora Park, NY, July 28, 1909, daughter of Harold and Clara Jones Caparn. From 1927 to 1929 she attended Bryn Mawr College; and from 1929 to 1930 studied at Ecole Artistique des Animaux in Paris, France; and from 1931 to 1933 studied at Archipenko School of Art in New York City. Rhys Caparn taught Sculpture at the Dalton School in New York for 21 years. Following her first exhibit in 1933, at the age of 24, Ms. Caparn received many awards, including the Medal of Honor for Sculpture from the National Association.

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UKRAINIAN ART DECO

Anton Pavlos

Couple of Skiers Racing Down Mountainside

ca. 1930s

A Streamline Moderne style sculpture by Ukrainian artist Anton Pavlos (1905-1954), produced circa 1930s.

 It depicts a couple of male and female skiers, moving fast down a steep incline.

Materials: Polychromed cast plaster, faux patinated bronze finish.

Markings: Signed ‘A. Pavlos’ to the base. 

Dimensions:   Height: 25.25 in. (64.14 cm)       Width: 11 in. (27.94 cm)       Depth: 23.5 in. (59.69 cm) 

$6,500

American Aestheticism

M.Peinlich

Griffoul Foundry

Sculptural Bronze Bookends

Ca. 1915

A charming set of bronze bookends. One of the bookends depicts a figure of a young girl with a questioning face expression, holding a bouquet; and the other a cupid, who peeks around the edge of the books at the girl. 

OBJECT:             A set of sculptural bookends

MATERIAL:         Brown patinated bronze

SCULPTOR:        M.Peinlich

FOUNDRY:         Griffoul Foundry, Newark, NJ

STYLE:                 Aestheticism

PERIOD:             Early XX Century

MARKINGS:      Signed ’M.Peinlich, Scp.’, stamped ‘real solid bronze’ and ‘Cast by Griffoul Foundry, Newark N.J.’

DIMENSIONS:   H: 6.75”     D: 3”     W: 4.5”

$1,900

Spanish Art Deco

Ignacio Gallo

Dancing with Satyr

Silvered Bronze Sculpture

ca. 1920s

 Dimensions:         Height: 19.75 inches         Width: 16.5 inches         Depth: 6.25 inches

Ignacio Gallo (Spanish/French, 1850-1935) was a Spanish artist, who was active as a sculptor and engraver in Madrid and Paris in the interwar period. His works show animal scenes, female nudes, dancers and heroic figures, as well as miscalaneous statuettes in Art Deco style; often made of silvered bronze, ivory and marble.

 $5,750

Max Kalish

“Anna” ~ Seated Nude Patinated Bronze Sculpture

1934

Signed, inscribed Anna, dated 1934.

Foundry mark for Meroni Radice, Paris

Good original antique condition consistent with age and use. ~ Some minor wear to patination from handling.

 Dimensions: Height: 9.75 inches Width: 6.25 inches Depth: 4.75 inches 

Max Kalish (1891 – 1945) was an American sculptor born in Valozhyn, Belarus. He was best known for his sculptures of laborers. His Orthodox Jewish family immigrated to Cleveland, Ohio in 1893, when he was two years old. He studied with Herman Matzen at the Cleveland School of Art; in New York City with Herbert Adams at the National Academy of Design, and in the studios of Alexander Stirling Calder and Isidore Konti; and in Paris with Paul Wayland Bartlett at the Académie Colorossi, and Jean Antoine Injalbert at the École des Beaux-Arts. His best known work is a 1932 statue of Abraham Lincoln in Cleveland, Ohio. Washington, D.C. publisher Willard M. Kiplinger commissioned Kalish to create fifty portrait statuettes of prominent figures in World War II era politics, arts and sciences. Kiplinger donated the statuettes to the Smithsonian Institution in 1944. Kalish was the author of Labor Sculpture, largely a collection of photographs of his statues of workers. Most of the works in the book are in a Social realism style. Critic Emily Genauer wrote in 1938, “It is the workmen who dominate the American scene, and who have become as surely symbolic of their time as the pioneers in covered wagons, and the robber barons and the great merchant princes were in there respective eras.” This was what Kalish portrayed in his art.

SOLD

German Art Deco

A Sleeping Cat

Patinated Bronze Sculptural Paperweight

Ca. 1920’s

HALLMARKS:        Signed with initials “MP.” and marked with three illegible stamps.

MATERIALS:          Patinated bronze.

DIMENSIONS:       Height: 1-3/4” (4.37cm)  |  Width: 3-3/4” (9.37cm)  |  Depth: 3-7/8” (9.7cm)

CONDITION:        Good antique condition, wear consistent with age and use. Original patina, original marble base.

This charming sculptural paperweight, depicting a sleeping cat of dark-green patinated bronze on its original red marble pedestal, is extremely elegant but, at the same time, functional desk accessory. Though it is signed with initials “MP.” and marked with three (illegible) stamps, the artist/maker remain unidentified. Nonetheless, its high quality artistic mastery, unmistakably-cubist expressionistic manner and Art Deco esthetics clearly point to Germany, as the country of origin; and 1920’s/30’s, as period of creation.

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French Art Deco

Aristide Maillol

Femme Nue

Bronze High Relief

Circa 1930's

Signed by the artist. Valsuani Foundry stamp. Good condition.

Dimensions: Height: 9 5/8 inches         Width: 9 1/4 inches

ABOUT THE MODEL

The model for this outstanding bronze bas-relief was the famous Dina Vierny (1919, Russia –2009, France), the artist’s muse, whose ample flesh and soft curves inspired the sculptor Aristide Maillol, rejuvenating his career; and who eventually founded a museum dedicated to his work in 1995, in Paris - Fondation Dina Vierny-Musée Maillol.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

                Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol (French, 1861 - 1944)

Aristide Maillol was born in Banyuls-sur-Mer, Roussilon. He decided at an early age to become a painter, and moved to Paris in 1881 to study art. After several applications and several years of living with poverty, his enrollment in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts was accepted in 1885, and he studied there under  Jean-Leon Gerome and Alexandre Cabanel from 1882 to 1886.

His contemporaries, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Paul Gauguin strongly influenced the artist. In 1893, Gauguin suggested him to join the artist group "Nabis". Around the turn of the century the Nabis developed an anti-naturalist, symbolist pictorial language with two-dimensionally-decorative, simplified color shapes and black contours. This style influenced his early paintings and tapestry designs.

Gauguin had also encouraged his growing interest in decorative art, an interest that led Maillol to take uptaspestry design. In 1893, Maillol set up a small tapestry studio at his home village of Banyuls, where he employed local women for weavings and began producing works whose high technical and aesthetic quality gained him recognition for renewing this art form in France. Up to 1900 he produced wall tapestries in the Art Nouveau style, but then an eye disease forced him to concentrate on sculpture, mainly small statues made of wood and clay from which he developed his monumental stone and bronze statues.

The main subject of his sculptural work was the female nude, which featured a classic calmness and a clear, closed plasticity. His works done between 1902 and 1905 reveal an approach to classical, statuary forms and his striving for a closed sculptural volume, a harmonious balance and a calm classical expression, which was adopted from Hellenistic Antiquity. Aristide Maillol's compact, voluptuous female figures, reminiscent of Gauguin's women as well as of Renoir's later nudes, considerably influenced European and particularly German sculpture.

Maillol also produced important graphic works - drawings, lithographs and particularly series of woodcuts, which the enthusiast for Antiquity made to illustrate antique literature.

A first overview of his creations was shown in Paris in 1937, as part of the exhibition "Les maîtres de l'art indépendant", which was held at the Petit Palais simultaneously with the World Exhibition and occupied three room.

The artist was awarded with large orders, and 1936 - the biggest one of them all, the monumental sculpture "La Montagne" for the then planned Museum of Modern Art in Paris. But these plans were not destined to come true makes it possible for his tragic death in a car crash in 1944 ...

Maillol is often remembered as the "Cézanne of sculpture", as he, like Cézanne - paved the way to abstraction...

VALSUANI FOUNDRY

The Valsuani foundry was started by the Italian brothers Claude and Attilio Valsuani who learned the foundry trade while employed at the famous Hébrard art foundry. While working for Hébrard, Claude Valsuani showed great promise as a finisher and eventually worked his way up to become the Technical Director of the Hébrard foundry. In 1899 Claude Valsuani started his own foundry in Châtillon, casting mostly small works for various artists primarily using the lost wax technique of casting (cire perdue). In 1905 he moved his foundry to 74, rue des Plantes in Paris.

Among the better known sculptors who had the Valsuani foundry cast their works were: Degas, Rodin, Renoir, Gauguin, Maillol, Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse, Giacometti, Brancusi, etc.

The Valsuani foundry quickly acquired a great reputation, particularly for its outstanding mastery of lost wax casting. Claude Valsuani was also « (…) celebrated for the beautiful patinas he created with a blowtorch », a technique imported from Italy which, he said, « did not leave [any] deposit of carbon» and gave the sculptures a beautiful glossy aspect. One of the foundry’s most famous patinas until now is called the noir Valsuani (Valsuani black).

Claude Valsuani died in 1923 in his native Italy, but his son, Marcele, took over the running of the foundry and continued to produce extremely fine detailed bronzes until the 1970's.

The artist Leonardo Benatov, who had worked with Valsuani as a sculptor, then bought the foundry in 1981 after Marcele Valsuani had left Paris. He took over the Valsuani catalogue and foundry mark and successfully set himself in the finest tradition of bronze casting.

He renamed the foundry Airaindor-Valsuani and moved it to larger and better equipped premises in Chevreuse, 20 km from Paris, where it since then operates. Construction works took place from 1981 to 1985. A huge building of 2000 m2 houses three induction melting furnaces buried in the ground, allowing to cast bronzes weighing up to 1,6 tons all in one piece .

Being an artist himself, Leonardo Benatov also mastered the science of bronze casting, which allowed him to attract famous artists around the world such as Michel Guino, Mikhail Shemyakin, Karsten Klingbeil, Xavier Degans, Jean Fréour, Jean Vérame, Anthony Quinn, etc. who chose Airaindor-Valsuani to immortalize their art.

He, nevertheless, always reserved a special place in his heart to the works of Dalí, whom he unconditionally admired. Following their meeting in 1981, Dalí even gave him the exclusive right to carry out his main sculptures: among which the various versions of the Venus de Milo with drawers, The Minotaur or the series of fifteen low reliefs in homage to Picasso commissioned in 1976 by an Italian banker.

The Valsuani stamp is therefore more than ever a guarantee of quality, not only for the artists themselves but for experts, collectors, art dealers, auction houses and museums.

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Arts & Crafts Movement

Frank Lloyd Wright Design

Vintage Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Exclusive

Patinated Bronze

Pocket Vase

Limited Edition of 29

Ca. 1992

 This is an outstanding example of Arts & Crafts era vase design with square columnar neck flanked.

 Limited Edition: only 29 exemplars made.

 Height: 17.5”         Width: 8.75”         Depth: 8.75“

 Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

The vision of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation is to inspire the world through beautiful spaces that are thoughtfully designed and experienced. Taliesin and Taliesin West are both National Historic Landmarks and were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2019. Mission: The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation is dedicated to preserving Taliesin and Taliesin West for future generations, and inspiring society through an understanding and experience of Frank Lloyd Wright’s ideas, architecture, and design. We achieve this mission by preserving Wright’s work to provide a meaningful experience of it; educating the public on his principles, and using them to promote STEAM education for youth; and showcasing innovative new technology solutions that embody Wright’s ideas.

sold

Arts & Crafts Movement

Frank Lloyd Wright Design

Vintage Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Exclusive

PATINATED Bronze

Duo Vase

Limited Edition of 18

Ca. 1992

 This is an outstanding example of Arts & Crafts era vase design with square columnar neck flanked.      

Limited Edition: only 18 exemplars made.

Height: 21”         Width: 12”         Depth: 7“

A monumental vase, consisting of two paired vases of the same square section but different heights. The red-accented narrow base gives the entire design of the vase unexpected lightness. An outstanding example of Arts & Crafts era design.

Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation

The vision of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation is to inspire the world through beautiful spaces that are thoughtfully designed and experienced. Taliesin and Taliesin West are both National Historic Landmarks and were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2019. Mission: The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation is dedicated to preserving Taliesin and Taliesin West for future generations, and inspiring society through an understanding and experience of Frank Lloyd Wright’s ideas, architecture, and design. We achieve this mission by preserving Wright’s work to provide a meaningful experience of it; educating the public on his principles, and using them to promote STEAM education for youth; and showcasing innovative new technology solutions that embody Wright’s ideas.

sold

Novecento Italiano

Fausta Vittoria Mengarini

Medusa

Monumental Patinated Bronze Bas-Relief Medallion

ca. 1926

Dimensions:

Diameter of medallion: 24.5 inches Total width (wingspan): 26 inches Depth: 6 inches

 We proudly present this very rare and outstandingly beautiful Novecento Italiano multicolor patinated bronze bas-relief medallion of Medusa, created by the world-famous Italian sculptor Fausta Vittoria Mengarini. This impressive monumental sculptural work of art had embellished one of the Art Deco buildings in Rome that had been demolished since. The stunning medallion-bas-relief “Medusa”, being one of the most significant works of an outstanding sculptor, was featured on the cover of a monographic book “Fausta Vittoria Mengarini” by Arturo Calza, published by Ex Libris Silvana Dandini, a Roman publishing house in 1928. The book itself has become a bibliographical rarity.

Fausta Vittoria MENGARINI (Italian, 1893-1952)

Birthplace: Rome

Profession: Sculptor, teacher

Studied: Royal Acad. Art, Rome, with E. Gjoia.

Exhibited: NAWPS, 1931 (prize); Int. Fair, Tampa, FL., 1931 (prize); Victory's Gal., Italy, 1935 (prize); Govt. Rome, 1936 (prize).

Member: NAWPS.

Work: War Mem. with figures, Palace of Justice, Royal Italian Govt., Rome; Congregational Church, Montclair, NJ; Monumental Lighthouse, Massaua, Eritrea, Africa (Royal Italian Gov't.); busts, H.M. King, Mussolini at Eastman Dental Clinic, Rome; Univ. Rome.

sold

American Art Deco

Mabel Conkling

Natalie

Patinated Bronze Portrait Bust

1920s

Signed under right shoulder: Mabel Conkling

Engraved under left shoulder: Natalie

Dimensions: H-18” x W-8” x D-8”

Mabel Conkling (1871-1966) was an American sculptor, who was very prolific during the Art Deco period. Known for her public sculptures, especially fountains with figures and allegorical titles such as Goose Girls, Song of the Sea, and Joy of Life, she also did relief panels including her famous nymph panels for a swimming pool. Mabel Conkling was born in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, and during her career, married to sculptor Paul Conkling, lived primarily in New York City but spent the summers in Boothbay Harbor.  She studied in Paris for ten years, including at the Academie Julian and Academy Colarossi, and among her teachers were James McNeill Whister, Raphael Collin, Augustus St. Gaudens and Frederick MacMonnies, who was especially influential in her becoming a sculptor.  Her sculptures were exhibited in the Paris Salon and in 1900 at the Expo Universelle.  Other exhibition venues were the St. Louis Expo of 1904; the National Academy of Design, 1907-1929; Pennsylvania Academy, 1911-1927; Art Institute of Chicago, 1916, 1919, 1922 and 1926; and the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors.

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Burr Miller

Helen Coolidge Woodring

Bronze Portrait Bust

1939

Dimensions:  H: 13.5” x W: 7.5” x D: 9.5”

The inscription on the back of the sculpture reads ‘Helen Coolidge Woodring - wife of the Secretary of War - 1939.

ABOUT THE SCULPTURE SUBJECT

Helen Coolidge Woodring (1906 – 1986) was a socialite, belonging to the highest society of the country during her era, and the daughter of United States Senator Marcus A. Coolidge. Mrs. Harry Hines Woodring was the wife of Harry Hines Woodring (1887-1967), who served as Governor of Kansas from 1931 to 1933, at which point he was appointed Assistant Secretary of War under Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1936, Roosevelt promoted him to Secretary of War and served until 1940. For a more complete picture of the look and social-ladder significance of Helen Coolidge Woodring, enclosed are a few archival photos, and an image of her oil on canvas portrait, created by Tino Costa (Russian/American, 1891/2-1947) - a noted portraitist, whose painting subjects were as diverse, as King Christian of Denmark, child star Shirley Temple, Herbert C. Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, General Douglas MacArthur, Douglas Fairbanks, and Jean Harlow. Tino Costa’s portrait of Secretary Harry Hines Woodring hangs in the Pentagon.

ABOUT THE SCULPTOR

Burr Miller Jr. (1904 - 1958) was an American sculptor and a recognized master of portrait sculpture. Although he permanently resided and had his work studio in Lyme, Connecticut, Miller was often commissioned by many celebrities of that era to create portrait sculptures of themselves and members of their families all around the country. Burr Miller was Elected Artist Member (1934) of Lyme Art Association, and had numerous personal exhibitions at Lyme Art Association galleries in 1932 – 1939.

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Carl Wilhelm "Ville" Vallgren

‘Maternity’

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

Art Deco

Finland, ca. 1920s

Signed on plinth: ‘Vallgren’  |  Dimensions: 6.33” high x 1.75” wide x 2.75” deep.

This elegant desk-size statuette, finely cast in bronze during the life of the artist, is a much smaller version of his famous marble sculpture “Maternity”; on view in permanent collection of the Museum of Arras.

Carl Wilhelm "Ville" Vallgren (Finnish, 1855 – 1940) was an internationally renowned Finnish sculptor. Born in Porvoo, and long resident of Paris, where he went in 1878, after studying architecture in the Helsinki Polytechnic. In Paris, he entered the Ecole-des Beaux-Arts, and studied under Cavelier.

Vallgren’s mirrors, figurines, lamp stands, urns, and candelabra established his reputation as a decorative artist. Of his statues and portraits, several are in New York City, in the Vanderbilt collection, notably “Death and Resurrection” and “A Breton Girl.”

His famous works in Finland include “Mariatta,” in the Imperial Castle, and a “Head of Christ” in the National Museum at Helsinki. The marble group “Maternity” is in the Museum of Arras. Vallgren’s best-known work is the statue of Havis Amanda in Helsinki. A bronze statuette “Youth” is in the collections of the Berlin National Gallery.

sold

Alexander MacLeod

A Pair of Nude Female Bathers

Grand Painted Plaster Bas-Relief

Ca. 1920s

Signed on the base ‘MACLEOD’.

Dimensions Height: 34” | Width: 18” | Depth: 10” 

This is Alexander MacLeod’s rare sculptural work, perhaps a study for one of his paintings of the famous Hawaiian series. This grand in size and perception plaster bas-relief depicts two beautiful nude female bodies, desperately fighting for survival amidst raging ocean waves.

The blue-green navy blue color gives this amazing work even more drama. The back of the sculpture is hollow inside.

Alexander Samuel MacLeod (1888–1956), also known as A. S. MacLeod, was widely known American artist - mainly a painter and printmaker. He was born on Prince Edward Island, Canada on April 12, 1888. MacLeod studied at McGill University. After moving to San Francisco, he continued his artistic training at the California School of Design under Frank Van Sloun.

In 1921, MacLeod arrived in Hawaii, where he worked in the art departments of the magazine Paradise of the Pacific and the local papers, The Homnolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.[1] By 1929, he had returned to Canada and resided there for ten years.

Again, in Hawaii, MacLeod became the director of the graphic art department for the United States Army in the Pacific. In 1943, he published a book of his Hawaiian prints, ‘The Spirit of Hawaii, Before and After Pearl Harbor’. MacLeod retired to Palo Alto, where he died in 1956.

MacLeod is best known for his Hawaiian landscapes (such as Fishpond, Kahaluu) and sympathetic representations of rural Hawaii's native population (such as Surfing Waikiki).

Public collections, holding works by Alexander Samuel MacLeod:

·         The California State Library (Sacramento).

·         Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.

·         Honolulu Museum of Art.

·         The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts (Stanford University).

·         The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Missouri).

·         The New York Public Library.

·         The Seattle Art Museum.

·         The Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, DC).

·         The University of Hawaii at Manoa.

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Hungarian Art Deco

Jenő Kerényi

Magician

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

1930s

Signed KEREMYI on the back of the plinth.

Dimensions:         Height: 14.75”         Width: 11.75”         Depth: 7.75”

Good antique condition, wear consistent with age and use. Some patina abrasions are noticeable in the back area. The white Carrera marble base obviously is a later replacement. 

Jenő Kerényi (Hungarian, 1908 – 1975) was an important sculptor and a winner of many international awards. He was graduated Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts under professorship of the famous sculptor and architect, Jenő Bory.

BIOGRAPHICAL CHRONOLOGY

1908 Born in Budapest.

1925-1930 School of Applied Arts.

1930-1937 Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, a student of Professor Jenő Bory

From 1934 Exhibiting artist

AWARDS

1969 The city of Budapest Pro Arte golden medal

1969 II. National Statuette Biennale, Pécs, Baranya county grand prize

1968 Gold grade of work merit

1966 Outstanding artist

1964 Merited artist

1958 Brussels World's Fair, Grand Prix

1955 Kossuth-award

1952 Munkácsy-award

1950 Munkácsy-award

1950 Suzzara (OL)

1950 International statuette exhibition I. prize

1942 Zrínyi-reward

1937 Roman scholarship

PERSONAL EXHIBITIONS

2006 Körmend Gallery, Budapest

1980 State Gallery, Moscow

1978 Szentendre (permanent exhibition)

1976 Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest

1965 Collegium Hungaricum, Vienna and Lintz

1941 Tamás Gallery, Budapest

 GROUP EXHIBITIONS

1978 IV. Budapest International statuette, Biennial, Art Gallery

1975 Public property Art Gallery, Budapest - Jubilee Art Exhibition, Art Gallery, Budapest

1973 II. International Statuette Biennale, Art Gallery, Budapest

1969 Hungarian art 1945-1969, Art Gallery, Budapest - II. National Statuette Biennale, Pécs

1960 XXX. Venice Biennale, Venice

1960 Our fine arts after the liberation - Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest

1958 World Exhibition, Brussels

1942 XXIII. Venice Biennale, Venice

1940 Sports Award Exhibition

1937 New Artists Association, Budapest

 WORKS IN PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Ferenczy Museum, Szentendre

Capital Gallery, Budapest

Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest

$4,500

American Art Deco

Study of a Boxer

Bronze-Patinated Plaster

1920s

Impressed on the base: MASHINEFED(?)

 Dimensions:

Height (total): 20-1/2”     Height (base): 3/4”     Width: 12-1/4”     Depth: 6-1/4”

SOLD

American Art Deco

Bust of a Woman

Painted Hand-Carved Wood & Anodized Sheet Metal

1930s

Dimensions:

Height: 17-3/4”     Width: 10-3/4”     Depth: 6-1/4”

An outstanding work of fine art by an unknown sculptor, who created a kind of mysterious and refined Renaissance Madonna in the now classical aesthetics of the Art Deco period by using most simple materials - wood, paint, sheet metal and nails... Despite the fact that the paint in many places peeled and fell off; and that the whole sculpture is covered with almost a century of patina, it only gives this unique piece of art that fascinating mysticism and nobility that do not allow the viewer to look away from it but, instead, keep looking for more and more unusual and exciting imaginative details.

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french art deco

Semi-Nude Erotic Female Dancer

Bronze Sculpture by Josselin

1920s

Dimensions:         H – 15.25”   W – 11.5”   D – 2.75”

Lovely large French silvered bronze sculpture of a semi-nude erotic dancer, signed in the bronze: Josselin.

Original portorro marble base.

Good antique condition consistent with age and use. There is no damage or repairs.

We make our best effort to provide a fair and descriptive condition report. Please examine the photos attentively. Send us a message to request more details or discuss price.

$2,400

Marina Núñez del Prado

Head

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

1930s

Dimensions:         Height: 15”         Width: 9”          Depth: 11”

Original wood base: 7.5” x 6” x 6"

Marina Núñez del Prado (1910 – 1995) was a celebrated Bolivian sculptor and one of the most respected sculptors from Latin America. Her work is highly sensuous, with rolling curves. She carved from native Bolivian woods, as well as black granite, alabaster, basalt and white onyx. Perhaps one of her most famous works is "White Venus" (1960), a stylized female body in white onyx. Another celebrated work is "Mother and Child," sculpted in white onyx. Indigenous Bolivian cultures inspired much of her work.[2]

Marina Núñez Del Prado was born in La Paz, Bolivia on October 17, 1910. Del Prado first discovered her love of art in her youth while studying sculptural modeling techniques in La Paz. Her passion for sculpture was inspired by the work of Michelangelo, and she went on to study fine art at the Academy of Fine Arts in La Paz, graduating in 1930. She continued on at her alma mater as an instructor of artistic anatomy and sculpture. She became the first woman to achieve a position as the chair of the Academy.

While she was working at the Academy of Fine Arts, La Paz, Del Prado began exhibiting locally. She was very artistically active, and collaborated with various artists, such as Cecilio Guzmán de Rojas, a Bolivian painter who led the indigenous art movement at that time. Similarly Del Prado primarily focused her work on the rights of indigenous peoples and indigenismo, a political ideology centering the relationship of the indigenous population with the government.

Del Prado left her job at the university and her home city of La Paz to travel in 1938. She spent the next several years traveling through Peru, Uruguay, and Argentina. She then traveled to other countries outside of South America, including Egypt, parts of Europe, and the United States, where she studied for 8 years in New York on a fellowship awarded by the America Association of University Women.

While in New York, Del Prado won a Gold Medal for her exhibition “Miners in Rebellion.” This work was centered around the workers of the Bolivian region of Potosi. Shortly after this, in 1948, Del Prado moved back to La Paz, where she continued to make work inspired by the indigenous peoples of South America, as well as the landscape and culture of her homeland. She later moved to Peru in 1972, where she lived with her husband, Jorge Falcón, a writer native to Peru. With her four siblings, Del Prado donated the Casa Museo Marina Nuñez del Prado to the people of Bolivia in memory of her parents. The museum houses over a thousand works of art, mostly done by Del Prado and some by her sister, Nilda. Del Prado passed away in Lima, Peru in 1995.

In 1938 she left her post and traveled through Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, the United States, Europe, and Egypt. From 1940 to 1948, she worked and organized exhibitions of her work in the United States while on a scholarship. In 1946 "Miners in Revolt," inspired by the miners in Bolivia's Potosí Department, won a gold medal in a New York exhibition. In 1948 she returned to Bolivia, finally settling down in La Paz in 1958. By 1972 she moved to Peru where she lived with her husband, a Peruvian writer.

Along her successful career she met outstanding artists such as Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brâncuși, poets Gabriela Mistral, Alfonsina Storni and Juana de Ibarbourou. She was also a friend of the Bolivian writer Franz Tamayo. Her work has been the subject of international and national critique. Botelho Gozalvez (1961) argues that her work is marked by two main characteristics: grace and strength. The strength is seen through her Andean landscapes and her grace is recognizable in the harmonious geometry of her works. Botelho claims that Nunez del Prado has a “genius loci” and distinguishes four periods in her work. The first period is characterized by the musical thematic of her work.The second period is characterized by the use of bidimensional sculpture and a social tematic. The third period is characterized by the tridimensional stone sculpture. It is also known as the ‘maternal’ period because of her aymara Madonnas and other depictions of indigenous women. Finally, the fourth period is the neo-abstract which has been influenced by Picasso, Archipenko and Milles. In similar fashion Hector Herazo Rojas (1962) argues that her works is characterized by strength, grace and monumentality He also points out that her works revolve around the thematic of race, myth and tradition. Her sculptures of indigenous motherly figures and mythic animals can attest to this. Pedro Querejazu (1996) coincides with Herazo Rojas on her race thematic and suggest that her sculptures originated within the movement of ‘native’ realism. According to him, her later her work adopted a modern and international expression which achieved a final stage immersed in the abstractism. This later work focused on the female figure and creatures of the Andes. On this later stage she worked with Amazonian tropical woods, bronze, and stones such as granite, andesite, basalt, onyx and marble. Other critics like Eduardo Mendoza Varela (1961), who reviewed her sculptures exhibition shown in the Luis Angel Arango library at the bank of the Republic of Colombia in Bogota Colombia, argues that her work is ‘miraculous’ and ‘mysterious’. His critique employs poetic metaphors to emphasize her skills and mastery of the materials in her sculptures. He considers the abstracted and reduced forms as possessing the ability to go beyond just physical representation but capture the spirit of the artist herself. The critic Guillermo Nino de Guzman also refers to her work as ‘genius’ and a constant force of creative energy in regards to her series “Mujeres al Viento”(Página 7, 2014). Finally, her work has inspired poetry verses. The Spanish poet Rafael Alberti has dedicated an homage to her work.

Núñez Del Prado Museum

In the 1970s Marina Núñez del Prado established her residence and art studio in what would become the Museum Hose, located in 300 Ántero Aspillaga Street, right at the center of the El Olivar Forest. This neocolonial style building was conceived in 1926 by the engineer Luis Alayza and Paz Soldán and raised by the master builder Enrique Rodrigo, being one of the first buildings in the area. It became the first house in the whole of El Olivar to be declared National Cultural Heritage and in 1984 the house-museum of the Núñez del Prado Foundation was officially inaugurated in La Paz in honor of Marina Núñez del Prado's parents.

The House Museum governed by the FOUNDATION NUÑEZ DEL PRADO, is a Private Museum that enriches the Bolivian heritage. For decades it was a home and studio to Marina Nunez del Prado, and now it has become the Casa Museo and a treasured place of history and talent to those of Bolivia. The museum contains 1,014 works by del Prado, which constitute the greater repository of her work including sculptures, drawings and sketches by Marina, thus making it the largest existing collection of her works. But within the museum you will not only find the work of Marina, but also that of her sister Nilda, who was a great goldsmith and painter. The museum is filled with their family environment, works of her father, and the collections of Bolivian Silver, Colonial Art, Contemporary Painting, and Handicrafts.

The house is surrounded by a garden of sculptures that had changing results affected by the urban modifications of its surroundings. It is composed of two levels being the first one of adobe and the second one of quincha brava. On the first floor there is a small central courtyard with a fused iron fountain. Its façade is colorful and on the right hand side, it reproduces, on a smaller scale, the front of the famous Palace of the Admiral of the city of Cusco. The workshop of the sculptor Marina Núñez, located on the second level, has been considered as the heart of the house and the intervention revolves around it.

For a large period of time the situation of the home museum of Marina Nunez del Prado was one of complication. At the time the museum had been closed and forgotten for almost 10 years due to lack of management and support. The closing was due to a break in its infrastructure during the initial construction of the American Tunnel and had remained closed to the public while many people claim the national or municipal government never took care of the situation. There exist many personal accounts of neighbors who had watched the museum remain neglected for years and described its importance to their community and art history. They speak highly of the museum and the work included as well as speak fondly of del Prado as an artist. In 2012 they published a note that restoration of the house would begin and that work was being done to solve the many architectural issues. It was reopened in April 2015 by the San Isidro District Council and the curatorial work made for the selection of the pieces being shown was made by Gustavo Buntinx.

$2,800

Munich Secession

Centerpiece with Pumas

Patinated Bronze

1920s

Dimensions:         Height: 6.5”         Width: 16.5”         Depth: 16.5”

The Munich Secession was an association of visual artists who broke away from the mainstream Munich Artists' Association in 1892, to promote and defend their art in the face of what they considered official paternalism and its conservative policies. They acted as a form of cooperative, using their influence to assure their economic survival and obtain commissions. In 1901, the association split again when some dissatisfied members formed the group Phalanx. Another split occurred in 1913, with the founding of the "New Munich Secession".

By the end of the Nineteenth Century, more artists lived in Munich than lived in Vienna and Berlin put together. However, the art community there was dominated by the conservative attitudes of the Munich Artists' Association and its supporters in the government. These attitudes found expression in the official "mission statements", written by the so-called "Prince of Painters" (Malerfürst) Franz von Lenbach. Matters came to a head in 1891 when the Prince-Regent Luitpold of Bavaria founded the Prinzregent-Luitpold-Stiftung zur Förderung der Kunst, des Kunstgewerbes und des Handwerks in München, an art foundation devoted to promoting traditional history painting in the service of the state. This foundation created and maintained a high level of artistic quality and brought world attention to the Academy of Fine Arts, but was firmly opposed to impressionism, expressionism, symbolism and other contemporary trends in the art world.

At first, the Secession had some difficulty finding a building for their exhibitions. The city of Frankfurt offered to provide the necessary space and 500,000 Gold Marks, if the group would move there permanently.[3] Their first exhibition actually took place at Berlin's "National Exhibition Building" (now known as "ULAP") early in 1893.

Baurat (city construction supervisor) Franz von Brandl provided the Secession with some free land at the corner of Prinzregentenstraße and Pilotystraße. Construction began immediately and their debut exhibition took place on July 16, 1893, in the first portion of the building to be completed. Over 4,000 visitors came to see 876 works by 297 artists.

The success of this effort eventually allowed them to come to an agreement with Franz von Lenbach and the Artists' Association. As a result, the art exhibition building on the Königsplatz (now the Staatliche Antikensammlungen) was transferred to the Secession in 1897.

In 1933, the National Socialist party began their crusade to bring all forms of artistic expression under their control: a process known as Gleichschaltung (bringing into line). Artists were eventually required to obtain state endorsement for all of their works. Those who were considered "degenerate" were not allowed to paint.[4] In 1938, the Munich Secession was dissolved as part of the "Kulturellen Säuberung" (cultural cleansing) process.

Following the end of World War II in 1946, the Neue Gruppe (de) and the Neue Münchner Künstlergenossenschaft (New Munich Artists' Association) were founded and led to the establishment of the Bundesverband Bildender Künstlerinnen und Künstler (Federal Association of Visual Artists).

In 1992, the Secession celebrated its centennial and, in March of the following year, the Society of Friends and Sponsors of the Munich Secession was created to support the Secession's continuing goals, maintain the "Secessionsgalerie" and promote exhibitions.

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GERMAN ART DECO

Dancing Boys

Black Forest Hand-Carved Wood Sculpture

1920s

Dimensions:         Height: 17.5”         Width: 12”         Depth: 8”

$3,800

Italian Art Deco

Equestrian Groom

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

1920s

Signed on the base: “DITA”, and foundry stamp.

Dimensions:         Height: 11.5”         Width: 2.75”         Depth: 2.75”

$2,800

Raymond Jacques Adrien Sabouraud

Valsuani Paris Foundry

Femme Nu

Patinated Bronze Sculptural Paperweight

1924

The present work was cast in 1924 at the Valsuani Paris Foundry, used by the likes of Rodin, Degas, Renoir, Modigliani, and Matisse.

 Dimensions:       Height: 10 inches         Width: 9.5 inches         Depth: 2.94 inches

 Raymond Jacques Adrien Sabouraud (French 1864-1938)

 Raymond Sabouraud was a French physician specializing in dermatology and mycology, as well as an acclaimed painter and sculptor, best known for his bronze nudes. While successfully working in the field of microbiology and creating the internationally renowned Sabouraud agar in 1892, he also made his debut as a sculptor in 1889.

 After Raymond Jacques Adrien in 1905 had befriended the painter, Odilon Redon, he soon became a regular member of the Societe du Salon d`automne, and had also participated in the Salon des Tuileries along with such artists, as Raoul Dufy, Alberto Giacometti, Marc Chagall, and Georges Rouault.

 The same year, the book “Raymond Sabouraud, sculpteur” was published with a preface by French art historian, Elie Faure, detailing Sabouraud`s work as a sculptor.

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Hungarian Art Deco

Erwin Kormendi-Frim

female Head

Hand-Carved Ebonized Wood Sculpture

Circa 1930s

Dimensions:

Height: 13.5 inches         Width: 6.75 inches         Depth: 4.88 inches

ERWIN KORMENDI-FRIM (Hungarian, 1885 – 1939) was famous Hungarian painter, graphic and sculptor. He began his studies at Simon Hollósy, then was a student of Jean-Paul Laurens in Paris. He also worked on the Nagybánya artists colony. After his return, he regularly had exhibitions at the Műcsarnok (Palace of Art) and showed his pictures in the National Salon. He was a member of the KUT. He also spent several years in Nuremberg, Germany.

 $8,500

German Art Deco

Discobolus

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

Circa 1925

Dimensions:

Height: 11 7/8 inches         Width: 8 inches         Depth: 3 5/8 inches

Probably, German. Created in Europe, in the 1920s or 30s, this beautifully founded black and green patinated bronze sculpture on its original wooden base is an Art Deco version of Discobolus (after Discobolus of Myron, a famous Greek sculpture, depicting a youthful ancient Greek athlete throwing discus, circa 460–450 BC).

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American Art Deco

Robert Aitken

XOROS (A DANCE)

Patinated Bronze Sculpture

Circa 1920

Signed ‘AITKEN’ and ‘XOROS’ on the plinth.

Dimensions:         Height: 20 inches           Width (top): 11 inches           Depth: 6 inches

XOROS (for Greek: Χωρος) means ‘Dance’ in English.

This remarkable in its expensiveness sculpture depicts a forest spirit – satyr, dancing and playing his reed simultaneously. With horns and horse ears, satyrs were endowed with the qualities of wild creatures with animal qualities, little thought of human prohibitions and moral standards. In addition, they were distinguished by fantastic endurance, both in battle and at the festive table. Their great passion was the passion for music, reed being one of satyrs’ main attributes.

Robert Ingersoll Aitken (1878-1949) was a noted American sculptor. Robert Ingersoll Aitken was born in San Francisco, California. He became a noted sculptor who spent most of his career teaching at the National Academy of Design in New York City. He has done numerous portraits, full size and bust, of well-known figures, and his work is in many collections and museums including the Smithsonian Institution and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. For his early study, he was a painting pupil of Arthur Mathews and Douglas Tilden at the Mark Hopkins Institute and by the time he was age 18, he had his own studio. In 1897, he studied briefly in Paris, where influences turned him to sculpture. He taught at the Hopkins Institute until 1904 and was awarded some of the premier sculpture commissions including monuments to the Navy and to President McKinley in Golden Gate Park. In 1904, he returned to Paris for three more years and then settled in New York City where he was a long-time teacher at the National Academy of Design.

SOLD

Marcel-André Bouraine

French Art Deco

Bronze Sculpture of a

Semi-Nude Woman

Circa 1920’s

Dimensions

14.5 in.H x 14 in.W x 7.75 in.D         37 cm H x 36 cm W x 20 cm D

 An outstanding Art Deco bronze sculpture of a seated semi-nude woman by Marcel-André Bouraine (French, 1886-1948)

Price: $6,500

French Art Deco

Charles Raphaël Peyre

Silvered Bronze Sculptural Group

Circa 1925

Dimensions:

Height: 13 inches       Width: 26 inches       Depth: 6.5 inches       Weight: 51 pounds *

Art Deco silvered bronze sculptural group with 2 female putti figures reclining together in an embrace, surrounded by flowers and filigree. Sculpture has a beautiful silver finish, and rests on the original rouge marble base. Signed on the right front “Raphael Peyre”; and foundry mark “B.L. Paris” with “Cire Perdue” (lost wax) in an oval cartouche in the back of the sculpture.

Charles Raphaël Peyre (French, 1872 – 1949),

This impressivesculptural group was carved by the fashionable French sculptor Charles Raphaël Peyre, who trained under Alexandre Falguière and Antonin Mercié, two of the leading sculptors of the 19th century. Peyre exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon, of which he was a member from 1900, winning numerous awards (Bénézit, op. cit., vol. 10, p. 828). The dazzling combination of rouge marble and silvered bronze in the present group, reflect the taste for polychrome sculpture at the time Peyre was working, and recall aspects of the Art Nouveau movement.

RELATED LITERATURE
E. Bénézit, Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintures sculptures dessinateurs et graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays par un group d'écrivains spécialistes français et étrangers, Paris, 1999.

*The piece is very heavy, crating recommended for shipment.

$9,500

Swedish Art Deco

- Scarred by a Mouse -

Bronze Sculpture by

Carin Nilsson

Ca. 1933

Made with great artistic skill in the unmistakably North European Art Deco esthetics, and exhibiting excellent casting quality, this very elegant sculpture also draws attention of the viewer to the originality and absolute none-triviality and humor of the composition - a splendid nude young woman froze in complete immobility, frightened to death by the little mouse in front of her on the floor, also frozen startled. Signed by the artist on the base, and dated 1933.

Measurements:

Height: 10 3/4 inches            Width: 5 inches            Depth: 3 7/8 inches

Carin Johanna Nilsson (Swedish, 1884 - 1973) was a famous Swedish sculptor and visual artist. Born on September 13, 1884 in Styra, Östergötland, she was the daughter of the inspector Sigfrid Nilson and Hanna Seidlitz. Nilson studied in New York in 1922-1923; and in 1925-1927 at the Gottfrid Larsson's art school, as well as an extra student at the Art Academy in Stockholm. In 1928-1930, she was a student at the Académie Colarossi and at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, where her teachers were Charles Despiau, Henry Arnold and Antoine Bourdelle. During the studie, the artist made extensive trips to the Netherlands, England and Belgium. Karin Nilsson participated in group exhibitions with Östgöta Art Association, the Swedish Public Art Association and the Association of Swedish Konstnärinnor. Her public works include the famous Berga figure at the Normlösa church and chapel at the Uppsala hospital. She was awarded with Östgöta Art Association scholarship in 1928. Karin Nilsson's art consists of a wide variety of works - fountains, birdbaths, busts, athletes, religious figures and stressed decorative reliefs and frescoes. Among the portraits, there are of Alice Trolle at Children's Hospital in Linköping, Nathan Söderblom's in Vaksala and Haile Selassie's in Addis Ababa. Nilsson's works are represented in Sweden at the National Museum and the New Museum (featuring a self-portrait in marble), as well as at the American Swedish Historical Museum in Philadelphia, USA. Carin Johanna Nilson died in Stockholm, in 1973.

SOLD

Italian Art Deco

- Orientale -

Carved Wood Sculpture by

F. Falcone

Ca. 1925

Dimensions: Height: 22 1/2 inches            Width: 11 inches

This remarkable carved and dark-patinated wood sculpture, depicting a head of an Oriental man, wearing a turban is an absolutely unique piece of art that attracts an immediate attention of a viewer by its large scale, unusual composition, expressive face of the model and an original foreshortening turn of the head. On the sides of the base, it is signed "F. Flacone" and dated "1925", and "Orientale 1800". On the bottom of the base, there is a carved out inscription "Chiavari" (Chiavari is a small town in the Province of Genoa, Italy. It has about 28,000 inhabitants. It is situated near the Entella River.

$6,500

American Art Deco

- Child Feeding a Squirel -

Bronze Sculptureby

Rudolph Henn

Ca. 1920's

This desk-size sculpture of a naked child feeding a squirrel, was created by the sculptor mostly known for his depictions of children, Rudolph Henn.  In this small sculpture, the artist uses an unusual idea of combining typical Art Deco forms with the bright green patina that gives the work an element of ancient mysticism...

Dimensions: Height: 5 inches            Width: 2 inches            Depth: 2 inches

Rudolph Henn (German/American 1880-1955) was born in Olsbrücken, Germany. In 1901. Henn studied figural sculpture at the Academy of Applied Arts in Munich, counting Syrius Eberle and Heinrich Waderé among many other famous classmates. In 1907, he worked as a model maker for an ethnographic expedition to the Dutch East Indies. In 1908. after his studies he was freelancing in Munich until 191, when he was drafted as a soldier. After the World War I, Henn moved his workshop to Kaiserslautern and, after his marriage, two of his daughters were born. In 1929, during the Great Depression, the family immigrated to the United States and settled in New York City. Since 1936, Henn was actively involved in the artistic design of the Harlem River Houses residential complex that was developed under the Treasury Relief Art Project. There, he collaborated with Heinz Warnecke with Theodore Barbarossa, Erwin Springweiler and Richmond Barthé. In addition to large-scale monuments in public spaces, Henn continued to create a smaller-scale bronze pieces. Many of his bronze works are of children, including fountain sculptures.

$750

American Art Deco

Female Nude

Bronze Sculpture/Paperweight by

Opus Cellini Bronze Works

Ca. 1930

Dimensions: Height (with base): 3 3/4 inches     Base thickness: 3/4 inches       Base length: 8 1/4 inches     Base width: 3 15/16 inches

                 This remarkable Art Deco desk-size gild & dark-patinated bronze and marble sculpture/paperweight depicts a comfortably resting beautiful nude female. It is made around 1930 by the famous American founder, Opus Cellini Bronze Works, still active in New York. Many of Cellini works can be found in the collection of Smithsonian American Art Museum. The bronze is marked: "Opus-Cellini", the black marble base is original.

$1,200

American Art Deco

Mother & Child

Bronze Sculpture by

Robert Aitken

Ca. 1920's

The nurturing young mother depicted in the nude, resting on the ground and cradling her infant.

The sculpture is signed by the artist on the plinth of a stepped square base.

 Domensions:

Height: 3 inches          Base: 23/16 x 2 3/16 inches

                Robert Ingersoll Aitken (1878 - 1949)

                A noted American sculptor, Robert Ingersoll Aitken was born in San Francisco and was active/lived in California, New YorkCity and France. He is very well known for classical figure and portrait sculpture. He spent most of his career teaching at the National Academy of Design in New York City. He has done numerous portraits, full size and bust, of well known figures, and his work is in many collections and museums including the Smithsonian Institution and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Aitken studied there at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art [also called the California School of Design - now the San Francisco Art Institute] with Douglas Tilden. From 1901 until 1904 he was an instructor at the Institute. In 1904 he moved to Paris where he continued his studies. He returned to New York City after his sojourn in Paris and was employed as an instructor at the Art Students League. His works include the Science fountain and Great Rivers statues at the Missouri State Capitol, the "Iron Mike" statue at Parris Island, South Carolina, several military sculptures at West Point, the Temple of Music and the Dewey Monument in San Francisco, California, and sculptural works for the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri. Aitken also produced the "Fountain of Earth" for San Francisco's Panama Pacific Exposition. Perhaps his most famous work is the West Pediment of the United States Supreme Court building, which bears the inscription "Equal Justice Under Law". The sculpture, above the entrance to the Supreme Court Building, is of nine figures—Lady Liberty surrounded by figures representing Order, Authority, Council, and Research. These allegorical figures were in fact sculptures of real people who had a role in the creation of the building. Aitken himself is depicted in the pediment, seated to the proper left of Liberty with Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. Many of his works were carved by the Piccirilli Brothers, including the pieces for the National Archives Building. Aitken created a stir when he criticized the display and placement of the Venus de Milo. Aitken also enjoyed success as a designer of coins and medals. He sculpted the $50 gold commemorative (round and octagonal) for the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915, as well as the official medal of the event. He also created the Missouri Centennial commemorative half dollar of 1921, following it a decade and a half later with the California Pacific International Exposition commemorative half dollar of 1935-1936. In the medallic arena, Aitken sculpted the American Numismatic Society’s 1921 medal commemorating Marshal Foch’s visit to the United States; the 15th issue of the Society of Medalists Omnia Vincit Amor, 1937; the Medal of the National Academy of Design; and the Medal of the National Sculpture Society.

sold

Dimensions:

Media:    Patinated bronze, white Carrara marble

Height:   22 3/4 inches

Width:     28 1/2 inches

Depth:    6 3/4 inches

Weight: approximately 150 lbs.

Artists of the Novecento Italiano art movement:

Giacomo Balla            Anselmo Bucci             Pompeo Borra             Aldo Carpi

Carlo Carrà                 Felice Casorati              Giorgio de Chirico      Raffaele De Grada

Fortunato Depero      Antonio Donghi             Ercole Drei                 Leonardo Dudreville

Achille Funi                  Virgilio Guidi                 Achille Lega               Gian Emilio Malerba

Arturo Martini             Pietro Marussig            Francesco Messina    Giorgio Morandi

Ubaldo Oppi                Renato Paresce           Siro Penagini               Gino Severini

Mario Sironi                Mario Tozzi                   Francesco Trombadori       Adolfo Wildt

Novecento Italiano    

Reclining Male Nude

Bronze Sculpture/Paperweight

Ca. 1930

 This rare Novecento Italiano Bronze Sculpture of a Reclining Male Nude is a true masterpiece of Art Deco sculpture, created in 1930's Italy. Monumental in its dimensions and weight yet light in perception and elegant, the strong and muscular figure of a reclining nude half-man - half-god is rendered and founderedof bronze with amazing subtlety, and covered with a black and green patina. The fact that the sculptor's name is unknown, gives this extraordinary work of art an even more mystical significance. Created in the best traditions of one of the strongest Italian art movements of the period, Novecento Italiano, this outstanding work of art is following the formal canons of the Art Deco externally, their art is definitely different from the rest because of a certain spiritual content; glorifying the human spirit and the body to the divine ideal; thus creating a new standard of superman - perfect enough not to need any clothes, to decorate or improve himself. On the contrary, his nakedness exalts him above all. Kenneth McKenzie Clark, Baron Clark (1903 –1983), a world-famous British author, museum director, broadcaster, and one of the best-known art historians and aesthetes of his generation, in his book The Nude, published in 1956, puts it with perfection: "To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes and the word implies some of the embarrassment which most of us feel in that condition. The word nude, on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone. The vague image it projects into the mind is not of a huddled and defenseless body, but of a balanced, prosperous and confident body: the body re-formed."

Novecento Italiano art movement was founded by Lino Pesaro, a gallery owner interested in modern art, and Margherita Sarfatti, a writer and art critic who worked on Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s newspaper, The People of Italy (Il Popolo d'Italia). Margherita Sarfatti was also Mussolini’s mistress. Motivated by a post-war "call to order", they brought a group of artists together, and the new art movement was officially launched in 1923 at an exhibition in Milan; with Mussolini as one of the speakers.  The group in the original lineup was also represented at the Venice Biennale of 1924 in a gallery of its own. After the group finally formed, the new Novecento Italiano staged its first group exhibition in Milan in 1926. Several of the artists were WWI veterans; Sarfatti had lost a son in the war. The group wished to take on the Italian establishment and create an art associated with the rhetoric of Fascism. The artists supported the Fascist regime and their work became associated with the state propaganda department, although Mussolini reprimanded Sarfatti for using his name and the name of Fascism to promote Novecento movement. The name of the movement (which means 1900s) was a deliberate reference to great periods of Italian art in the past, the Quattrocento and Cinquecento (1400s and 1500s).  The group rejected European Avant-garde art and wished to revive the tradition of large format history painting and sculpture in the classical manner. It lacked a precise artistic program and included artists of different styles and temperament, aiming to promote a renewed yet traditional Italian art. The artists of Novecento Italiano would not imitate the world created by God but would be inspired by it. Despite official patronage, Novecento art did not always have an easy ride in Fascist Italy. Mussolini was personally uninterested in art and divided official support among various groups so as to keep artists on the side of the regime. Opening the exhibition of Novecento art in 1923 he declared that “it is far from my idea to encourage anything like a state art. Art belongs to the domain of the individual. The state has only one duty: not to undermine art, to provide humane conditions for artists, to encourage them from the artistic and national point of view."  The movement was in competition with other pro-Fascist movements, especially Futurism and the regionalist Strapaese movement. Novecento Italiano also met outright opposition. Achille Starace, the General Secretary of the Fascist Party, attacked it in the Fascist daily press and there was virulent criticism of its “un-Italian" qualities by artists and critics. The unity of the group depended much on Sarfatti and it weakened in her absence from Milan. When she lost her influence with Mussolini, the group fell apart and was formally disbanded in 1943.

$35,000

pomona

Massive Art Déco sculpture of Pomona, the ancient Roman goddess of fruit trees, garden and orchards, who watches over, protectsand cares for their cultivation. Associated with the flourishing of the fruit trees, in artistic depictions she is generally shown with a platter of fruit or a cornucopia. A statue of Pomona is set atop the Pulitzer Fountain in Manhattan's Grand Army Plaza in New York City.

• Date of manufacture : c.1930

• Period : Art Déco (1920-1939)

• Country : France

• Sculptor : Gustave Gillot (1888-1965)

• Remarks: Stamped: EDITION POMONE

• Height : 21 inches

• Width : 6 inches

• Depth : 4 inches

• Medium : Bronze

• Inventory number : S-1930-0005

$5,500

archer

A dynamic depiction of a sportsman, stringing his bow.

• Date of manufacture : c.1930

• Period : Art Déco (1920-1939)

• Country : Western Europe

• Sculptor : Signed illegibly

• Height : 13 1/2 inches

• Width : 8 1/4 inches

• Depth : 2 3/4 inches

• Medium : Bronze / Marble

• Inventory number : S-1930-009

$1,400

relay runner

Relay runner at the starting line of the race.

• Date of manufacture : c.1930

• Period : Art Déco (1920-1939)

• Country : Western Europe

• Sculptor : Signed illegibly

• Height : 15 inches

• Width : 12 inches

• Depth : 5 3/4 inches

• Medium : Bronze / Wood

• Inventory number : S-1930-0010

$1,750

cherub playing a flute

Allegorical figure of cherub playing a flute.

• Date of manufacture : c.1930

• Period : Art Déco (1920-1939)

• Country : Austria

• Sculptor : Unsigned

• Remarks: Stamped: AUSTRIA

• Height : 11 inches

• Width : 4 3/4 inches

• Depth : 3 1/2 inches

• Medium : Bronze / Marble

• Inventory number : S-1930-0011

$950

This very artistic desk-size sculpture of a naked child, holding a bowl with food, with a crow sitting on his shoulder, who is trying to still it from him, was created by Rudolph Henn (German-American, 1880-1955), the sculptor mostly known for his depictions of children. Bronze and patina are in excellent condition.  In this small sculpture, the artist uses an unusual idea of combining typical Art Deco forms with the bright green patina that gives the work an element of ancient mysticism...

a child fending off a crow

Rudolph Henn  (German/American 1880-1955) was born in Olsbrucken, Germany. In 1901, Henn studied figural sculpture at the Academy of Applied Arts in Munich, counting Syrius Eberle and Heinrich Waderé among many other famous classmates. In 1907, he worked as a model maker for an ethnographic expedition to the Dutch East Indies. In 1908. after his studies he was freelancing in Munich until 191, when he was drafted as a soldier. After the World War I, Henn moved his workshop to Kaiserslautern and, after his marriage, two of his daughters were born. In 1929, during the Great Depression, the family immigrated to the United States and settled in New York City. Since 1936, Henn was actively involved in the artistic design of the Harlem River Houses residential complex that was developed under the Treasury Relief Art Project. There, he collaborated with Heinz Warnecke with Theodore Barbarossa, Erwin Springweiler and Richmond Barthé. In addition to large-scale monuments in public spaces, Henn continued to create a smaller-scale bronze pieces. Many of his bronze works are of children, including fountain sculptures.

• Date of manufacture : c.1930

• Period : Art Déco (1920-1939)

• Country : United States of America

• Sculptor : Rudolph Henn (German/American 1880-1955)

• Remarks: Signed by the artist

• Height : 5 3/8 inches

• Width : 2 3/8 inches

• Depth : 1 1/2 inches

• Medium : Green patinated bronze

• Inventory number : S-1930-0014

$950