A Rare Böttger Stoneware Model of the Head of Apollo, Circa 1710-13, with later gilt-metal mount

Theodore Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, bearing paper label;

Acquired by the grandmother of the present owner.

The model is based on sketches executed by Paul Heermann during his stay in Rome of the celebrated marble group Apollo and Daphne (1622–25) by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, commissioned by Scipione Borghese and installed in the Villa Borghese.

Heermann, who had previously worked alongside his uncle Johann Georg Heermann at the Troja Palace, was active in Dresden from around 1705. There he participated in sculptural projects for the Zwinger Palace and, from 1708 onwards, supplied models to Johann Friedrich Böttger for use at the Meissen Manufactory. An invoice dated 9 October 1708 records Heermann delivering three figures to Böttger’s associate, Dr. Johann Bartholomaei, for the sum of four talers (Rainer Rückert, Biographische Daten der Meißener Manufaktaristen des 18. Jahrhunderts, 1990, p. 81).

The model of an Apollo head is documented in the earliest surviving inventory of the Meissen manufactory, dated 28 May 1711 (under numbers 251 and 999), and again on 3 August of the same year, where it is listed as “Form 42… Apollonis Kopf”, published by Claus Boltz, Formen des Böttgersteinzeug im Jahre 1711, in Mitteilungsblatt der Keramikfreunde der Schweiz, No. 96, 1982, pl. 11, fig. 16).

The 1919 and 1920 Rudolph Lepke sales of duplicates from the Dresden porcelain collection included two examples of this model; Porzellane und Waffen aus den Kgl. Sächsischen Sammlungen in Dresden, Rudolph Lepke’s Kunst-Auctions-Haus, Berlin, 7-8 October 1919, lot 58; and 12-14 October 1920, lot 82. The example sold in 1920 bore the Japanese Palace inventory number 217; in the 1770 inventory of the palace the model is recorded under the designation “Judithen-Köpfe,” of which ten examples were listed.

For a closely comparable example, see Eberle, 2011, who illustrates a bust from the historic collection of Schloss Friedenstein, together with references to additional published examples (cat. no. 8). A further example was sold at Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, 6 June 1972, lot 173, and later sold at Bonhams London, 4 December 2019, lot 38. 

Related Literature

Martin Eberle, Das Rote Gold, Die Sammlung Böttgersteinzeug auf Schloss Friedenstein Gotha, Gotha : Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha, 2011, p. 45, cat. no. 8.