Master Sculpture & Works of Art

Master Sculpture & Works of Art

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 663. Possibly Tirol, 18th century.

Property of The Bass, Miami Beach to benefit the John and Johanna Bass Art Acquisition Fund

Possibly Tirol, 18th century

Saint Rosalia

No reserve

Auction Closed

February 7, 08:37 PM GMT

Estimate

7,000 - 10,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Property of The Bass, Miami Beach to benefit the John and Johanna Bass Art Acquisition Fund

Possibly Tirol, 18th century

Saint Rosalia


height: 59 ½ in.; 151.13 cm

gilt and polychrome wood, set with glass eyes

Covenant near Munich, by repute;

John and Johanna Bass Collection, New York, until 1963;

Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach.

Miami, Bass Museum of Art, Pascale Marthine Tayou Beautiful, 29 October 2017 - 21 May 2018;

Miami, Bass Museum of Art, Open Storage: Selections from the Collection & Works on Loan, 26 July 2020 - 27 August 2023.

This near-life size figure is adorned with a crown of roses and clad in a dress with fabric woven with roses. Her adornment indicates the figure's likely identification as Saint Rosalia, patron saint of Palermo, Italy, who was often invoked in times of plague.


A figure standing upon a serpent-entwined globe is traditionally associated with the Virgin, as Queen of the World, however, the snake is a symbol of Wisdom, Medicine and Healing, among other things, and the choice to depict Saint Rosalia atop a globe and serpent here may refer to her ability to heal. The flowers found in images of Saint Rosalia are interpreted as gifts from the Virgin and Child, who would come visit her from time to time.


Stylistically the present figure relates to a polychrome wood statue of Saint Notburga in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg (inv. no. Pl.O. 2448), which is catalogued as Tirol(?), last third of the 18th century. Both figures share the unusual contrast between a refined modelling of the head and a rather schematic rendering of the upper body and skirt, as well as an analogous floral pattern painted on the bodice. The Notburga's facial type has been compared to the work of the Tirolean sculptor Joseph Götsch (1728-1793), who was also active in Bavaria.1 Similar features are seen here, with a prominent, slightly clefted, pinched chin, and chubby neck, which are characteristic of sculpture produced in Austria and Southern Germany in the late 17th and 18th centuries.


1 Maué, op. cit., p. 227


RELATED LITERATURE

C. Maué, Die Bildwerke des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts im Germanischen Nationalmuseum, Teil 2: Bayern, Österreich, Italian, Spanien, cat. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, Mainz, 2005, pp. 226-228, no. 200