Sale: 538 / 19th Century Art, June 10. 2023 in Munich Lot 644

 

644
Franz von Stuck
Athlet, 1890/1892.
Bronze with black-green patina
Estimate:
€ 12,000 / $ 12,960
Sold:
€ 20,320 / $ 21,945

(incl. surcharge)
Athlet. 1890/1892.
Bronze with black-green patina.
Inscribed "Franz Stuck" in the middle of the plinth. Total height: 65 cm (25.5 in). Diameter plinth 28,5
Cast by C. Leyrer, Munich (with foundry mark). Cast before 1906 (Stuck was nobilitate in 1906).

PROVENANCE: Private collection Italy.

EXHIBITION: (Selection, each a different copy):
Franz von Stuck, Werk-Persönlichkeit-Wirkung, Stuck-Villa, Munich 1968, cat. no. 6.
Franz von Stuck, Maler-Graphiker-Bildhauer-Architekt, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich 1982, cat. no. 131 (with illu.).
Franz von Stuck, Gemälde-Zeichnungen-Plastik aus Privatbesitz, Galerie der Stadt Aschaffenburg et al, 1994, cat. no. 70 (with illu.).
Spiel und Sinnlichkeit, Franz von Stuck 1863-1928, Mittelrhein-Museum Koblenz, 1998, Cat. no. 16 (with illu.).

LITERATURE: (Selection, each a different copy):
Otto Julius Bierbaum, Stuck (Künstler-Monographien XLII), Bielefeld and Leipzig 1899, illus. 143 and 144.
Franz Hermann Meissner, Franz Stuck, Berlin und Leipzig 1899, pp. 109f. (with illu.).
Thomas Raff, Die Kraft des Mannes und die weiche Schmiegsamkeit des Weibes. Franz von Stuck: Das plastische Werk, 2011, pp. 24-29 and p. 134 (with illu.).

Although Stuck's sculptural work is smaller than his painterly work, this form of expression fascinated him no less. A formative artistic experience for him was a longer stay in Rome with his artist colleague Max Klinger. Under the impression of the antique sculptures they saw in, among others, the Vatican collections, and their ideal, classical forms, the "Athlete" is one of Stuck's earliest fully three-dimensional figures. Although no direct models for the figure can be identified, one might think of the antique sculptures of discus throwers and wrestlers, which express the antique ideal of the harmony of body and spirit in the tense dynamic of the movement. Stuck presented the plaster model of the figure for the first time at the VI. International Art Exhibition at the Munich Glass Palace, while the first bronze was probably cast in late 1892, to which Otto Julius Bierbaum devoted several pages in his first comprehensive Stuck monographs from 1893 and 1899: "To depict the human body from all sides, physical, massive, is his intention, and this is how sculptures like the 'Athlete' were created, sculptures that emanate a sheer joy about the human body.” The physicality of the athlete, rendered with anatomical accuracy and yet idealized, shows him in a pose confident of victory and heroic nudity; he seems to lift the sphere with ease, which makes a motif of Atlas or Sisyphus weighed down by the weight of the globe or the block of stone seem less obvious. Not least because of the similarity to Stuck's own physiognomy, but also because of his enthusiasm for weight lifting, assumptions about an identification of the artist with his work arise. First successes as a painter had strengthened Stuck's artistic self-confidence and Bierbaum also mentioned that he kept weights in the studio and was proud of his powerful body. In the context of the popular physical education movement at the end of the 19th century, this corresponded to the ancient ideal of a healthy mind in a healthy body, also to be understood symbolically as an expression of artistic creativity. Always placed in prominent positions in the studio, Stuck finally integrated the figure into the new ensemble of the artist's altar, which was redesigned in 1901/02. The "Athlete" had a prominent place in the right golden niche of the predella, where it stands as a counterpart to the "Dancer" (1897/98). In combination with the "Sin" enthroned above everything, the two figures can be read as archetypes of man and woman who are bound to one another by erotic attraction and express one of Franz von Stuck's most fundamental principles: "The strength of men and the softness of women" (cf. Raff 2011, p. 52). As sculptural guiding figures, he has the names of the Greek sculptor Phidias and the greatest sculptor and universal artist of the Renaissance, Michelangelo, affixed to a golden plaque in the studio. Stuck was probably also interested in making the "Athlete" a large sculpture and planned a view from below as a later drawing suggests (Raff 2011, p. 27, fig. 29). The early casts were made by Leyrer in Munich, later copies also by Priessmann Bauer & Co. The small sculpture is represented in numerous international exhibitions as well as in the most important monographs on the artist and found its way into many renowned museum collections. [KT]



644
Franz von Stuck
Athlet, 1890/1892.
Bronze with black-green patina
Estimate:
€ 12,000 / $ 12,960
Sold:
€ 20,320 / $ 21,945

(incl. surcharge)