Nautilus goblet

Details

Literatur:
Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker (Hrsg.), bearb. von Barbara Hardtwig, Museum Villa Stuck: die Sammlung des Museums Villa Stuck, Eurasburg 1997, S. 164, Kat.-Nr. 53, mit ganzseitiger Abb. S. 165;
Thomas Raff, “Die Kraft des Mannes und die weiche Schmiegsamkeit des Weibes”. Franz von Stuck: das plastische Werk, Tettenweis 2011, S. 17, Kat.-Nr. 17, mit ganzseitiger Abb.

Ausstellung:
Sünde und Secession. Franz von Stuck in Wien, Belvedere Museum, Wien 2016, Taf. 79, S. 165.

Description

On the shell of a turtle stands a winged Erote or Cupid, stretched taut and holding up the shell of a nautilus snail with both hands. Despite the weight, he looks out from under the shell, laughing. He has girded an oversized, phallic quiver of arrows around his waist, which emphasises rather than conceals his nakedness. The mighty nautilus is decorated with filigree tendrils and fruit hangings and an applied mascaron on the front, with a putto perched on top, riding a dolphin over the waves. Stuck’s original nautilus goblet made of patinated bronze with a natural snail shell was exhibited at the Munich Kunstverein in March 1891 and then served as decoration for his artist’s altar in his studio at Theresienstraße 148, combined with antique casts, paintings and a stuffed peacock. Stuck then probably produced a second centrepiece, in which he modelled the scroll with the neurococo ornamentation described above, which was then sold in various versions from around 1893 by the Galvanoplastische Kunstanstalt der Württembergischen Metallwarenfabrik – WMF for short – as an electrolytically silver-plated metal casting. – Silver plating somewhat tarnished in places and with rubbing in places (especially on the knuckles), otherwise in good condition.