A Berlin cast iron bust of Bergrat Werner. - image-1

Lot 174 Dα

A Berlin cast iron bust of Bergrat Werner.

Auction 1047 - overview Cologne
02.05.2015, 11:00 - The Berlin Sale
Estimate: 2.000 € - 3.000 €
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A Berlin cast iron bust of Bergrat Werner.

Cast in two pieces and connected. A portrait of the mining superintendent (Bergrat) Abrahm Gottlob Werner in a miner's uniform with the Saxon civil service order. H 22.5 cm.
Royal Prussian Iron Foundries in Gleiwitz, after 1816 - 1847, modelled by Johann Carl Friedrich Riese or Carl Friedrich Tieck after a portrait by Gerhard von Kügelken from 1814/15.

Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749 - 1817) was a mineralogist and the most important German geologist of his times. The form of science which he founded is known as "geognosie". He taught at the "Bergakademie" (mountain academy) in Freiberg. He became mining superintendant of Saxony in 1800 and received the Saxon civil service order in 1816.

Literature

Further examples in: Cat. Aus einem Guss, Berlin 1988, no. 172 and Bartel, Die Königliche Eisen-Giesserei zu Berlin, Berlin 2004, no. 93.
An earlier bust of Werner in a toga after Ancient Roman portraits in: Arenhövel, Eisen statt Gold, Berlin 1982, illus. 13. For a description of the foundry's production cf. p. 264 ff. In the notes of p. 272 a mention of this bust in uniform mentioned in the Gleiwitz price catalogue up to 1847.