A cast iron portrait bust of Bergrat Abraham Gottlob Werner - image-1

Lot 201 Dα

A cast iron portrait bust of Bergrat Abraham Gottlob Werner

Auction 1105 - overview Berlin
21.04.2018, 14:00 - Prussia II
Estimate: 2.500 € - 3.000 €
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A cast iron portrait bust of Bergrat Abraham Gottlob Werner

Closed bust depiction of the mine inspector, the base inscribed "A. G. Werner." H 26.5 cm.
Königliches Hüttenamt Gleiwitz / now Gliwice, 1st half 19th C., the model attributed to Johann Carl Friedrich Riese.

Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749 - 1817) was a minerologist and the most important German geologist of his era. He was the founder of the science, which he named “Geognosie”, and taught at the mining academy in Freiberg. He was appointed Saxon mining inspector in 1800 and received the Saxon civil service order in 1816. His bust, alongside those of the theologist Jean Henri Samuel Formey (1711 - 1797) and the chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1743 - 1817), was one of those presented as outstanding examples by the Gleiwitzer Hüttenamt at the Berlin Academy in 1820, and actually sold better than that of Queen Louise.

Provenance

Estate of Dr. Willmuth Arenhövel.

Literature

Another bust without the inscription in: Arenhövel, Eisen statt Gold, Berlin 1982, p. 263, illus. 13.