Balthasar Permoser

� Dear Art Lovers and Friends, We are all familiar with the many attempts made throughout history to capture the end of life on earth in pictorial form. These include sculptural works of the deceased resting in eternal sleep, depictions of skeletons and skulls, and vani- tas pictures. In the Baroque period, this genre took on new forms in a revolu- tionary way. Artists analysed states of heightened emotion in the human soul and depicted feelings, pushed to an extreme, through the use of powerful meta- phors and expressions. This can be seen in all major works of the period. The viewer can barely avoid being drawn right into this emotional turmoil. The works created are exceptional in every respect and timeless in their artistic stylisation. Early on in my career as an art dealer I developed a deep appreciation for the art of the 16th and 17th centuries. Therefore, I am especially pleased to be able to present an utterly exceptional and marvellous work from this period to you this year which has been attributed to the major sculptor Balthasar Permoser. The figure, ‘A Pilgrim as a Memento Mori’, is of unique importance both on ac- count of its masterly execution and its singular iconography. What fascinates me, is how, through my close study of the ‘death as a pilgrim’, I have taken a jour ney through time, right back to Balthasar Permoser’s world of emotions in the Baroque era. I can sense the innate, animalistic ‘angst’ that surrounded death and the fear and agony of the tormented soul that does not know what lies ahead. Permoser stages the drama of this with masterful inge- nuity. Just as in those days, the pilgrim forces us to question the meaning of life; it serves to show our limitations. This work also supports my belief that people are increasingly attracted to Old Master paintings and sculpture, on an inter national level, there has been an notable increase in interest in this field over the past few years that is set to rise. A PILGRIM AS A MEMENTO MORI � � 5 A pilgrim recognisable, by his staff, the long cloak and the scallops on his hat and collar – the traditional emblem for pilgrims on the Way of St James – stands upright looking straight at the viewer, his open right hand beckoning us in an animated and expressive gesture. The very first impression, however, is deceptive: this is, after all, a figure of Death with both the face and the body already showing signs of advanced decay. Beneath the broad-brimmed hat the dark shadows around the eye so- ckets stand out, the nose is already missing and the mouth is tor n open widely to emit a silent scream of despair. Upon closer inspec- tion this picture of horror becomes more in- tensive: the abdominal wall has opened up, the bowels and maggots are sprewing out and winding themselves around the figure’s hips. A snake and a lizard on the sinewy, bare legs are even crawling their way up the body. his seemingly macabre sculpture with a body in the grips of decay stands in the tradition of the so-called ‘Tödlein’, literally ‘Little Death’ figures – a form of the ‘Grim Reaper’ and simi- lar personifications of Death. These are small skeletal figures carved out of ivory or wood, created in the 16th and 17th centuries. They were especially widespread in Germany fol- lowing the Black Death and the devastation of the Thirty Years’ War. The exquisite carving of this pilgrim figure testifies to the work of a highly skilled sculp- tor. The wavy hair, the tense sinews on the arms and legs, the toe and finger nails as well as the snake’s scaly skin have all been ex- ecuted with extreme precision. The hat has finely meshed cross-hatching, the naturalistic surface structure of the shells and the hint of blades of grass on the pedestal demonstrate how every single detail has been carved with equal care. The classical ‘contrapposto’ pose lends the figure a certain monumentality despite its small dimensions. The treatment of the folds in the cloak reveal that the artist must have been fa