An Austrian bronze head of 'The Yawner' circa 1900, after Xaver Messerschmidt

RELATED LITERATURE
The Grove Art Dictionary Online, Oxford University Press, 2004.
M.  Pötzl-Malikova, Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, Vienna and Munich, 1982, cat. no. 7.
Michael Krapf (ed.), Franz Xaver Messerschmidt 1736-1783, (exh.cat.) The Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna 2002, cat. no. 6.

The present lot is an early copy of the original 18^th century tin bust of  the Yawner preserved in the Szépmüvészeti, Müzeum, Budapest. 

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt‘s celebrated series of wonderful and bizarre ‘character heads’ became the artist’s private obsession after a career as a sculptor to the Viennese court.   After his death, 69 heads were found in his studio, 49 of which were exhibited in Vienna in 1793 in an exhibition accompanied by an itemized exhibition brochure entitled Charakterköpfe. The heads were, at that time, given the descriptive titles, such as Gahner or The Yawner, by which we now know them.

The collection of ‘character heads’ was inherited by the artist’s brother, Johann Adam, who then sold it to a dealer and collector named Stranz.  A further exhibition followed in 1812 and several others into the 19^th century. Plaster copies were made in the 19^th century as Messerschmidt’s work attracted considerable interest. According to Pötzl-Malikova, who recently examined the present lot, The Yawner appears to be the only Messerschmidt head from which bronze casts were made. These versions include a cast in Chicago and the present cast, both of which are mentioned in the literature. Both bronze copies include socles, probably added after the initial casting.

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (Wiesensteig, nr. Ulm 1736- Pressburg [now Bratislava] 1783) was descended from a family of sculptors, including Johann Baptist Straub, court sculptor in Munich, who also trained him. Following his formative years in Germany, Messerschmidt moved to Vienna and attended the Akademie which, in 1755, was under the directorship of Martin Van Meytens, a painter who had been active at the court of Maria Theresa. He gained his first appointment at the Imperial Arsenal where he was charged with decorating canons. Between 1760 and 1763 he produced his first known independent works, the gilt bronze busts of the Empress Maria Theresa and her husband Franz I von Lothringen, as well as the bronze reliefs of their son, Joseph II, and their daughter Maria Isabella von Parma (all preserved in the Österreichische Galerie, Belvedere, Vienna).

After his dismissal from the Akademie,  Messerschmidt moved to Pressburg where he devoted all of his artistic energies to the production of his beloved Charakterköpfe (‘character heads’).  Upon his death, his possessions went to his brother who sold them all to pay off the sculptor’s debts.

43 of the original heads are known today. Three examples of this rare and remarkable series of heads, two of lead-tin and one of alabaster, were recently sold for world record prices at Sotheby’s in New York and London.