LEONHARD KERN | THE ANOINTING OF CHRIST

This sumptuously carved relief of the Anointing of Christ illustrates Leonhard Kern’s distinctive style and his artistry in carving extremely fine details. The attenuated arms and the bold horizontal position of Christ’s proper right leg, the idiosyncratic square facial types, the varying depths of relief, and the clusters of parallel folds of drapery which collectively generate movement and enliven the sober subject are all trademarks of Kern’s style. Here, the blending of both the realism and the classicism of German Baroque sculpture are on display. The quality of execution, particularly in the treatment of the hair and beards of the figures, the morphology of the participants in the scene and the v-shaped cleft in the mountains are strikingly similar to Kern’s monogrammed relief of the Deposition in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fig. 1).

Leonhard Kern was born in the city of Forchtenberg and worked with his father Michael Kern, a stonemason. He continued his training in Italy, living in Rome for two years, where he devoted himself to the study of Italian Renaissance sculpture. Upon his return to Germany, after being an apprentice in his older brother Michael’s studio in Würzburg, 1603 to 1609, Leonhard was appointed to the court of the Elector Palatine Frederick V in Heidelberg, for whom he created, in 1617, biblical figures for the portal of the west facade of the Nuremberg Town Hall. Leonhard was forced to leave Heidelberg during the Thirty Years War and he settled in 1620 in the imperial city of Schwäbisch Hall. He founded his own studio, where he specialized in the production of small figurines and reliefs and favored the use of ivory, alabaster and boxwood. In 1648 he was appointed sculptor to the court of Frederick William von Hohenzollern, Elector of Brandenburg.

Only a small number of his works are signed with his monogram LK and very few are documented.



RELATED LITERATURE

Elizabeth Grünenwald, Leonhard Kern: Ein Bildhauer des Barock, exhibition catalogue, Schwäbisch Hall, 1969; 

Harold Siebenmorgen (ed.), Leonhard Kern, exhibition catalogue, Schwäbisch Hall, Häll.–Fränk. Museum, 1988