Charles R. Knight

The Princeton Tiger

1943

Provenance: Private Collection, Spain. Known as Peruvian alabaster for its translucency and workability, Piedra de Huamanga is a highly prized material from the province of Ayacucho in Peru. In the 17th and 18th centuries, local craftsman in the town of Huamanga began to specialize in the production of small-scale, polychrome religious sculptures made from this distinctive stone. Huamanga sculptures are among the most accomplished examples of carving from the Spanish Americas, where polychrome wood sculpture was a far more common sculptural medium. These works, which were created as independent sculptures or as sculptural groups—such as our three Magi—were intended for ecclesiastical as well as domestics settings. Our three figures likely formed part of a larger Nativity group—a New World variant of the tradition of the Neapolitan Crèche...

Provenance: Sables de Fontainbleau, Seine-et-Marne, France “Gogottes” are natural creations formed out of sands deposited in Northern France during the Oligocene Period, approximately 30 million years ago. Much later, in a process that has only recently become understood, groundwater rich in silica flowed through the sands...

Provenance: Private Collection, Spain. This intriguing and enigmatic sculpture depicts the head of a young African man emerging from a circular opening ...

Provenance: James Byrnes, Los Angeles (1917-2011) Giusto Le Court was born Josse or Justus de Corte in the Flemish city of Ypres. His father Jean was a sculptor and presumably his earliest training was with him before he entered the studio of Cornelis van Mildert. The young artist was clearly influenced by the dominant Flemish sculptor of the time, Artus Quellinus the Elder, with whom he may have worked on the decoration of the Amsterdam City Hall. Following the lead of many northern artists he travelled to Rome, perhaps more than once, before settling in Venice around 1655. It was there, as one of a colony of expatriate artists, that he made his name as a sculptor. One of his first Venetian commissions was for the monument to Alvise Mocenigo in the Church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti, where Le Court sculpted the marble figures of Strength and Justice. He also collaborated with the celebrated architect Baldassare Longhena, most famously for the high altar of Santa Maria della Salute, where he carved the multi-figured altarpiece depicting the Queen of Heaven Expelling the Plague. The present marble sculpture depicts the infant Saint John the Baptist, reclining, wearing his traditional hair-shirt, embracing a lamb, and holding the bottom of his attribute, a reed cross. Attached to his shirt is a baptismal cup, with which he would become associated later in his life. Veneration of the infant Saint John the Baptist was prevalent throughout Italy and images of the saint in childhood—often called “Giovannino,” or little John...

Thomas François Cartier, born on January 3, 1879, in Marseille, France, and passing away on December 27, 1943, was a notable French sculptor celebrated for his masterful depictions o...

Bengal Tiger sculpture by Santini made of silver electroplated cast composite and mounted on wooden base.

Painted Cast-Metal Tiger Continental School, circa 1900 8.75 x 19.5 inches Ex. Collection Interior Designer Joseph Cicio Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Joseph Cicio followe...

A very fine carved alabaster figure of a tiger Dimensions: D 10" H 17" W 33" CW4544.