VIENNA BRONZE, FIGURAL BOOKENDS WITH OWLS, 1900s

Company of Franz Xaver Bergmann (1861-1936)
Bronze with cold paint
Austria, 1900s

Revised description: Although these bookends were in the Vienna Bronze archive of the Fuhrmann Company previously these are not Vienna Bronzes but cast iron bookends by the Judd Company from the US, made around 1924.

These large cold painted bookends feature a naturalistically rendered owl each, whereas the bust of the wise bird is placed on a pedestal with a leaf shape at the front. The backside bears an ornate web decoration.

Vienna Bronzes / Franz Xaver Bergmann (1861-1936)
The term 'Vienna bronze' simply refers to antique bronzes that were made by artists from Vienna, Austria. In the 19th and early 20th centuries more than 100 small workshops and foundries manufactured these small objects. The bronzes started becoming popular in the middle of the 19th century. The bronzes are known to have extremely fine detail and are often cold painted with polychrome enamels. The subjects include animals like cats, pigs, foxes and dogs as well as human figures and nudes. Vienna bronzes come in all sizes but are most popular in the smaller scale. These bronzes can be as tiny as 2 cm tall. The most famous Vienna Bronze manufacturer was Franz Xaver Bergmann (1861-1936) who often signed his pieces with the letter 'B' in an urn-shaped cartouche.

Signature / Marks: numbering '9738' on both lower backsides
Dimensions: 16 cm height, 17 cm width – each
Condition: good condition with abrasions to cold paint here and there
Provenance: Austrian private collection