Lot 4173

Description

Red terracotta, unsigned. The relief comprising a total of 22 segments about workers returning home in the evening after a day in the fields. On the far left, the old farmer stands in the door of the farmhouse, next to his wife on a bench with her grandson on her lap. The child cheerfully greets his homecoming father, who is carrying another child on his shoulders and a bouquet in his hand. Next to him, a farmhand with an ox and a child blowing a horn, riding on a goat, followed by the parents, gazing at each other, one shouldering a rake, the other with a seed bag slung over. Overall dimensions approx. 760 (width) x 154 (height) x 25 (depth) cm. Minor professional repairs and replacements. Total weight of the relief approx. 700 kg. By all accounts, the relief was removed from a Munich party building by the American occupying forces in 1945 and saved from destruction by a private German citizen. In 1983, he had the relief installed along the outside of his garage, where it remained until it was dismantled a few years ago. Since then it has been stored in custom-made wooden crates ready for shipping. Total weight including wooden crates approx. 1250 kg. At the age of 13, Joseph Wackerle attended the wood carving school in Partenkirchen, followed by the Kunstgewerbeschule and the academy in Munich. At the age of 26, he was appointed art director of the Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg, became a teacher in Berlin, at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich in 1917 and at the Munich Academy from 1924 to 1950. He was awarded the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art in 1930, the Goethe Medal for Art and Science in 1940. In 1944, he was added to the so-called Gottbegnadeten (tr. God-gifted) list. In addition to numerous fountains, he was famous for his mural reliefs, e.g. the Rheinischer Hof in Munich and the Zeiss Building in Jena. His collaboration with Prof. Paul Ludwig Troost also had a formative influence on his career, from reliefs commissioned by Troost for the interior of passenger ships in the 1920s to the design of party buildings and collaboration on war memorials. A spectacular art work. ATTENTION: only pick-up or transport by special freight forwarder!

Condition: II Questions about the lot?