Emmanuel Villanis

Enfant De Pecheur

This amusing naturalistic sculpture in silver-plated pewter was probably made in the 17th century by Georg Schweigger. Inspired by a model created by another Nuremberg sculptor, Peter Flötner, it bears witness to the persistence during the baroque era of the naturalistic taste that emerged in the Renaissance. Intended as an ornament for some Kunstkammer, or cabinet of curiosities, this sculpture was a great success, as can be seen from the presence of similar works in many European museums. 1. Georg Schweigger Georg Schweigger was a baroque sculptor and medal founder from Nuremberg, known mainly for his small-scale works in stone, carved wood and cast metal. His only large-scale work, the Neptune Fountain, has been in the Petershof Palace, the summer residence of the Tsars near St. Petersburg, since 1797. This monumental sculpture demonstrates his taste for the representation of movement, which we find in this small piece, inspired, as we shall see, by earlier models. 2. The success of a naturalistic theme As is often the case in the history of art, the source of the Dog scratching his ear theme probably comes from an engraving, and more precisely from one made in Strasbourg in 1480 or in Aschaffenburg in 1481 by the Master of the Housebook, an anonymous engraver working in southern Germany at the end of the 15th century. This engraving seems to have been Peter Flötner’s (1490 - 1546) source of inspiration. Peter Flötner was a sculptor and engraver who settled in Nuremberg in 1522. The Louvre Museum also has a gilded lead statuette dated between 1500 and 1515 (on deposit at the Musée de L'Œuvre in Strasbourg), which in turn is thought to have served as a model for other known statuettes. This model was later taken up by the Frenchman Barthélemy Prieur...

The Nautilus shell is an excellent example of mathematics inherent within lifeforms of the natural world. As Davies consistently uses the 'golden ratio' (1:1.618) to proportion his work, he thought it important to exemplify this in his subject matter. The Fibonacci sequence (where each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers) and the logarithmic spiral are also inherent here. The bronze shell is mounted on a black granite base in a way that creates an optical illusion suggesting it is levitating above the base. This bronze Nautilus...

Paranthropus Robustus. An early man (hominid), one of the Australopiths from the subepochs of the early to middle Pleistocene period 2.6 - 1.5 million years ago. Some distinctive fea...

This portrait bust of a Scottish blackface ram that occupies an active use of space, is the ideal subject matter for a dynamic, bold yet serene bronze sculpture. The ram's magnificen...

Borzois or Russian wolfhounds originated in the 17th century and were bred and prized by the Russian aristocracy for their elegance and beauty. Davies has depicted this pair exhibiti...

Jessica Carroll is an Italo- American sculptor (b. 1961), member of an artistic family (her father was a painter, her mother a writer and her grandfather directed the movie Totò, Pep...