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Description
‘Spielende Pferde’ (‘Playing Horses’)
Exceptional thick, massive relief, weighting 21 (!) kilogram, executed in 1 cm thick pure copper.
This extraordinary massiv relief of 1 cm thick copper is a cast of the original plastermodel depicted in the book ‘Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle’, 1947. The surface of the relief is significant more detailed that an average (iron) cast. Thus far we have not seen in the market any other cast of ‘Spielende Pferde’, not in copper, not in bronze, and not in iron.
Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Spielende Pferde’. Plaster model, 72 x 57, signed 1946. Depicted in the book ‘Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle’, Stuttgart, 1947.
| – condition | : II-III * protected with hot microcrystalline wax |
| – size | : 75 x 60 cm, 21 kilogram. Up to 1,5 cm thick |
| – signed | : right, below ‘IWF 46’ |
| – type | : pure copper (galvanoplasty) |
* With some dark-red spots, caused by corrosion of copper in combination with the metals from the patina, resulting in the red oxide mineral Cu2O, or culprite (most well known copper oxide is copper-carbonate, CuCO3, which is green in colour).
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BIOGRAPHY: JAKOB WILHELM FEHRLE
Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Läufergruppe’ (‘Group of Runners’). Created in limestone, breadth 1 meter. Depicted in ‘Der Holz- uns Steinbildhauer’, 1944.
Left: Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Selene’. Plaster sculpture of 2,20 cm high, displayed at the GDK 1944.
Right: Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Aphrodite’. GDK 1942, room 34. Bought by the City of Stuttgart for 8.000 RM.
Left: Jacob Wilhelm Fehrle, postcard, ‘Hüter’ (‘Guard’). GDK 1943, room 2.
Right: Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Göttin des Frühlings’ ( ‘Goddess of Spring’). GDK 1941, room 7. Depicted in ‘Die Kunst für Alle’, March, 1942, and in ‘Die Kunst’, 1942.
Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Adlerbrunnen‘ (‘Eagle-fountain‘) in Esslingen. The Adlerbrunnen was originally created in 1360; in 1931 is was reshaped into a Wordl War I memorial. The column is 7 meters high. The eagle, the coat of arms of the city of Esslingen, was created by Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle.
Left: Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Bust of Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribentrop’. Signed ‘J.W. Fehrle 1942’. Foundry Alexis Rudier Fondeur Paris. Likely a commissioned work by the German ambassy in Paris. Height 52 cm. Sold by a German auction house in 2017.
Right: Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Nymphe’. Placed in the garden of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin (‘Im garten des Reichsaussenminsteriums’). Depicted in ‘Das Bild’, 1942.
Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, Sculpture of ‘Saint Florian’ in the Moltkestraße in the city of Heilbronn (Saint Florian, Florianus or Florian von Lorch who died in 304: the patron saint of fire fighters who died ).
Left: Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Flötenspieler’ (‘Flautist’). GDK 1942, room 8. Bronze, height 1,90 meters. Created for the house of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Joachim von Ribbentrop. Described and depicted in ‘Der Holz- und Steinbildhauer’, 1944.
Right: preliminay viewing of the GDK 1942. Left from Hitler: director of the Haus der deutschen Kunst Karl Kolb. At the right: Heinrich Hoffman. At the back, left: ‘Flötenspieler’ by Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle.
Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Adler’. Cast-stone. Depicted in ‘Der Holz- und Steinbildhauer’, 1941.
Similar Adler-sculpture by Fehre, signed 1937, at the facade of the Körschtalschule in Stuttgart. Photos around 2020.
Left: Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, postcard, ‘Bauer’ (‘Farmer’). GDK 1943, Room 2; depicted in the exhibition cataloge.
Right: Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Frau aus der Toskana’ (‘Woman from Tuskany’), cast-stone. Displayed at the ‘Frühjahrs-Ausstellung 1942’ of the Preussische Akademie der Künste.
Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Julia’, plaster, height 28 cm. GDK 1940, room 25; depicted in the exhibition catalogue. Bought by Goebbels for 3.000 RM.
Left: ‘Julia’, by Fehrle. Bronze, depicted in ‘Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte’, 1940.
Right: ‘Julia’ by Fehrle depicted on the cover of ‘Die Koralle’, 1940, Heft 33.
‘Julia’ by Fehrle, shown in ‘Die Deutsche Wochendschau, at 7 August 1940.
Die Deutsche Wochenschau, 7 August 1940, nr. 518 (at 2.45)
Cast of ‘Julia’ by Fehrle, sold by a German auction house in 2019. Bronze, height 50 cm including base of 10 cm.
Left: Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Statue of St. Michael’ on a high column (World War I and II Memorial in Schwäbschen Gmünd).
Right: on the column soldiers and the text: ‘1914-1918 sind 25%0 Söhne unserer Stadt Gmünd für Deutschland gefallen. 1939-1945 gaben über 1000 Gmünder ihr Leben für die Heimat’.
Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Fruhling‘ (’Spring’). GDK 1944, room 4. Depicted in ‘Kunst dem Volk’, 1944.
Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Ophelia’. GDK 1939, room 15. Bought by Von Ribbentrop for 3.000 RM. Depicted in ‘Deutsche Plastik der Gegenwart’, 1940.
Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Diana’. Displayed at the GDK 1941 room 6. Plaster. Lenght 1,75 meter. Depicted in ‘Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte’, 1941.
Left: Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Junges Mädchen’, 1938 (‘Young Girl’). Depicted in ‘Deutsche Plastik der Gegenwart’, 1940 and in ‘Die kunst fur Alle’, March, 1942.
Right: Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Iphigenie’. Displayed at the ‘Deutsche Kunstausttellung München’, 1930, in the Glaspalast.
Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Eva’, Steinguss. Depicted in ‘Westermann Monatshefte’, 80. Jahrgang, 1935/36.
Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Junges Mädchen’ (‘Young Girl’), Steinguss. Depicted in ‘Westermann Monatshefte’, 80. Jahrgang, 1935/36.
Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Mädchen vom Schwarzwald’ (‘Girl from the Black Forrest’), created in bronze. Displayed at the ‘Herbst-Ausstellung, Preussische Akademie der Künste’, Berlin, 1941. Depicted on the cover of the exhibition catalogue.
Left: Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Maria’, stone. Displayed at the ‘Ausstellung der Münchner Neue Secession’, 1920. Depicted in the ‘Kunst für alle’, 1920/ 21.
Right: Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Bust of Lotte Borst’. Displayed at the ‘Frühjahrsausstellung der Preussischen Akademie’, 1934. Depicted in the ‘Kunst für alle’, 1933.
Left: Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Gefallenendenkmal für Infanterie Regiment Nr. 180’ (‘Memorial for the Infantery Regiment Nr. 180’), Schwäbisch-Gmünd.
Right: Jacob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Kriegerdenkmal zu Crailsheim’ (‘War Memorial in Crailsheim’). Both memorials are depicted in ‘Deutscher Ehrenhain, für die Helden von 1914/18‘, 1931.
Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle, ‘Self-portrait’, bronze, 1947.
Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle
Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle (1884–1974), who came from a family of gardeners, was a German painter, drawer and sculptor. He studied from 1903 to 1905 at the Kunstakademie Berlin with Paul Meyerheim and later with Balthasar Schmitt at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich. From 1911 to 1914, after a study journey to Rome, he kept an atelier in Paris, where he met artists like Georg Kolbe, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Aristide Maillol, Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee. After his military services from 1914 to 1918, he went back to his hometown Schwäbisch Gmünd where he lived until his death. From 1922 he had many exhibitions in the area of Stuttart. In 1928 he became professor.
Fehrle was well known for his sculptures in bronze and stone, busts and war memorials, and especially for his works in cities in the Schwaben region. Girls and women with long bodies were a central motif in his work. Famous sculptures in this genre were the Gotische Eva (1910), Louise (1912), Aphrodite (1913), Claudia (1914), Madonna (1921) and Verkündigung (1922).
His success continued in the 1930s, when he was commissioned works by the Nazis. In Schwäbische Gmünd he created in 1935 the war memorial for fallen soldiers in World War I, a nine-meter-high bronze column crowned with a Swastika and Reichsadler (in 1948 the swastika and eagle were replaced by an angel with a flame-sword made by Fehrle).
It is very peculiar that even in 1937 works of Fehrle were taken away by the National Socialist regime from the Stuttgarter Staatsgalerie and the Ulmer Museum because they were ‘entartet’ (‘degenerated’). In 1938 Fehrle was represented at the exhibition ‘Deutscher Bauer – Deutsches Land’, Berlin (an exhibition ‘unter der Schirmherrschaft von Reichsbauernführer Reichsminister R. Walther Darré und Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg’).
From 1939 to 1944 Fehrle was represented in the Great German Art Exhibitions with 17 statues, including ‘Bauer’, ‘Hüter’, ‘Göttin des Frühlings’, ‘Flötenspieler’, ‘Julia’, ‘Frühling’ and ‘Opheilia’.
After World War II, in 1954, the personal friend of Fehrle, the Bundespräsidenten Theodor Heuss, gave him for his 70th birthday the Grosse Verdienstkreuz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. In 1974 in the Historischen Museum in Heilbronn an exhibition of works of Fehrle took place. Under the name of “Mädchen und Frauen” a large Fehrle exhibition took place in the Gmünder Museum in 2005, where more than 100 of his works were shown.