Alabaster plaque carved in high relief representing... - Lot 90 - Pierre Bergé & Associés

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Lot n° 90
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Estimation :
20000 - 30000 EUR
Alabaster plaque carved in high relief representing... - Lot 90 - Pierre Bergé & Associés
Alabaster plaque carved in high relief representing a frieze of four children. The four young boys are naked and adopt various attitudes: on the left, the first one, in profile, takes the left hand of the second one who is facing, his left leg raised, holding the wrist of the third one; on the right, the two children hold a drapery above their heads, they turn their backs, one with his right leg raised, the other one with a hand on his hip; base underlined by a scroll; monogram in the lower center LK. Southern Germany, Swabia, Leonhard Kern (Forchtenberg, 1588 - Schwäbisch Hall, 1662), circa 1630-1640 Height : 25,7 cm - Length : 26,8 cm - Depth : 4,5 cm (small lacks and restorations on the edge, some cracks) Provenance : former private collection of the Basque Coast, for at least two generations. Works consulted : E. Grünenwald, Leonhard Kern (1588-1662) - Meister des Bildhauerei für die Kunstkammern Europas, Sigmaringen, 1988; Die Künstlerfamilie Kern 1529-1691, Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1998. The hand of the great child sculptor Leonhard Kern, a member of a talented family of artists from the small town of Forchtenberg (Baden-Württemberg), is clearly recognisable here. Kern's child - usually male - has definite characteristics, just like the typical canons of his female nudes: a plump body with a rounded belly, a round, chubby face with a double chin and features that are still childlike but not yet those of a baby. The hair is short with loose comma-shaped or curly strands. A great observer of childhood, and himself the author of an abundance of offspring, Leonhard Kern takes particular care to accurately render the attitudes of the bodies and to convey a real impression of life and mobility. The morphology of the boys is admirably rendered with the bulges of flesh at the wrists or the insteps; we must also mention the particular finesse of the treatment of details such as the eyes, the mouths, the ears, the fingers and the toes, which are impressively precise. This theme of childhood, so recurrent in the work of the Swabian sculptor, is also to be placed in the context of his time; it must be seen as a reaction to the misery and violence that inhabited this period of the Thirty Years' War. Secular art thus contributed to brightening up the spirits by bringing pleasure and joy to life. The high quality of this plaque is corroborated by the presence of Leonhard's monogram, which the sculptor engraved, thus signing off on a composition and execution that he considered accomplished. This LK with linked letters can be found on several works by Leonhard, notably on the terrace of the ivory St. Jerome in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (inv. nr. 4548), on the alabaster bas-relief of the Deposition in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (inv. nr. 2000.283), and on the Three Graces in limewood carved in the round in the Szépmüvészeti Museum in Budapest (inv. nr. 6145). It is interesting to note that this last subject, because of its successful plasticity, has been used in various works made of other materials. The art historian Lise Lotte Möller has highlighted the role of these Mustertafel (literally "example of a painting"), which were used as models in the Kern workshops in Leonhard's time or later by his successors, such as his nephew Johann Georg Kern (1622-1698) or his pupil Johann Jakob Betzoldt (1621-1707). This frieze of children inspired the decorations of two ivory mugs, one attributed to the nephew, visible in the Berlin City Museum, which is dated around 1680 (inv. nr. K2131, fig. a), another in the same museum attributed to his pupil, from the second half of the 17th century (inv. nr. K3123, fig. b). This bas-relief was offered in a previous public sale in Monte Carlo (HDMC, Monaco, 12 December 2020, lot 73, under the attribution to Johann Georg Kern).
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