A carved softwood figure of a lady with a wreath / Flora - image-1
A carved softwood figure of a lady with a wreath / Flora - image-2
A carved softwood figure of a lady with a wreath / Flora - image-3
A carved softwood figure of a lady with a wreath / Flora - image-1A carved softwood figure of a lady with a wreath / Flora - image-2A carved softwood figure of a lady with a wreath / Flora - image-3

Lot 1843 Dα

A carved softwood figure of a lady with a wreath / Flora

Auction 1196 - overview Cologne
20.05.2022, 10:00 - Decorative Arts incl. Highly Important Mortars the Schwarzach Collection Part IV.
Estimate: 6.000 € - 9.000 €
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A carved softwood figure of a lady with a wreath / Flora

Depicting a young lady in a Classical drapery holding a floral wreath in her raised left hand. Softwood carved in the round and painted white over grounding. With shrinkage cracks, minor losses to the polychromy. H 116 cm.
Munich, attributed to Joseph Knabl, mid-19th C.

The attribution to Joseph Knabl (1819 - 1881), born in Fließ/Oberinntal, goes back to Julius Böhler, who auctioned the Georg Schuster collection in 1938. In the older collection catalogue by Hubert Wilm, the "Female Figure with Wreath" is described as a funerary sculpture by an "unknown Bavarian sculptor of the first half of the 19th century".

Joseph Knabl completed an apprenticeship as a sculptor before moving to Munich, where he earned his living carving pipe bowls, but soon also created figures of saints and altars for various workshops. His religious sculptures, including some for King Ludwig II, are far better known than profane subjects such as the woman with a floral wreath or Flora presented here.

Provenance

Collection of Georg Schuster, Munich.
Auctioned by Julius Böhler Munich, March 1938, lot 257.

Literature

Illus. in Wilm, Die Sammlung Georg Schuster, Munich 1937, no. 93, pl. 49.