Lot n° 127
Estimation :
8000 - 12000
EUR
The Child Jesus embracing the little Saint... - Lot 127 - Coutau-Bégarie
The Child Jesus embracing the little Saint John the Baptist in boxwood carved in the round. Christ is seated on a turret, his right foot resting on a skull, he embraces with his arms Saint John the Baptist, holding his cheek with his right hand; the forerunner is standing, his left leg back riding a lamb lying down, he is dressed with the melota. The bodies are chubby, the cheeks round, the hair is composed of wavy locks and curled at the ends.
Southern Germany, workshop of Leonhard Kern (1588 - 1662), second half of the 17th century.
H. 14.5 cm
(small accidents, slight lacks)
This kiss between Jesus and Saint John the Baptist, both children, is a pictorial theme that was represented by several artists, primarily Italian, during the Renaissance.
We can mention Leonardo da Vinci who represents the scene with the Virgin Mary, (Louvre collection, RF 198) but also the holy children kissing dated around 1486-1490 of which several versions are kept in public collections.
This invention appears in a drawing in the Windsor collection (RCIN 912564) and was widely reproduced by Leonardo's Milanese followers: Marco d'Oggiono (1465-1530), Bernardino de Conti (1465-1523), a woman painter from Bologna, Lavinia Fontana (Bologna 1552 - Rome 1614), or Bernardino Luini (1481-1532). But also by the Flemish Joos Van Cleve (Cleves ? circa 1485 - 1540 Antwerp) in a painting circa 1525-1530, by the Spanish Murillo (1617-1682) and in the nineteenth century in a painting by William Bouguereau (1825-1905) dated 1875 and kept in a private collection.
This embrace between Jesus and John may be a very original representation of the union of the Old and New Testaments. Indeed, this allegory puts John the Baptist, considered the last prophet of the Old Testament, with his cousin Jesus, announced by all the previous prophets and recognized as the ultimate Revelation.
Sculptors from southern Germany and Austria also drew on this theme. For example, an ivory bas-relief in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (inv Nr D 204) (fig A); and an ivory sculpture by Leonhard Kern in the Hojenlohe Museum at Neuenstein Castle (NL 83) (fig B). The hair of these figures, whose locks are soft and wavy and end in a snail-like curl, but also the delicately chubby shape of the bodies, the very puffy cheeks and the raised noses are all characteristics that bring this sculpture closer to the style of Leonhard Kern.
Works consulted :
Leonhard Kern, Neue Froshungsbeiträge, exhibition catalog, Folgeband on Ausstellung, 22 October 1988 - 15 January 1989, Hallish-Fränkischen Museum Schwäbisch Hall, pp 63 -67
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